


Fall to the Earth

by LikeSatellites



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Character death but temporary, M/M, Slow Burn, wonho is an alien superhero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-02-04 15:13:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 57,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12773721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LikeSatellites/pseuds/LikeSatellites
Summary: Wonho: that’s his name. Wonho levitates up to the edge of the platform just in time for the train to billow past where he’d dropped over onto the tracks just moments before. The kid in his arms is small. Maybe four or five. Tan skin and tight black curls spilling into his face. He’s clearly knocked the fuck out.Wonho finds the boy’s mom in the crowd, and she sobs restlessly until her son is placed in her arms. She drops to her knees with her kid limp in her lap, and Wonho stands in front of her, as if he’s nervous he didn’t do enough.Superman/Spider-man/Never Been Kissed au





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I'm back and I'm trying my hand at story with plot and slow burn wish me luck  
> here is Wonho being the damn glorious angel hero we all know he is

Hyungwon is stepping off the subway car when he hears the scream. There’s a crowd of people across the platform staring down at the tracks in horror. Three dogs are tugging at their leashes and yapping, snouts over the edge. A short redhead scoops up her yipping frenchie and pulls it into her arms protectively after it wanders too close to the gap.

A man in a tight navy pinstripe suit bumps into Hyungwon when he pauses at the base of the stairs. 

“Hey, kid, keep walking. Some of us gotta get to work,” the man grunts, trying to shovel past Hyungwon to get to an opening at the staircase. 

“What’s going on over there?” 

The guy shrugs and starts walking away. “Some kid fell on the tracks, I guess.”

Hyungwon grabs hold of the railing as the screaming grows louder, more urgent. 

“The  _ train _ ,” the old woman selling churros cries, waving a bouquet of her fried goods around in the air, sugar granules flying everywhere. 

The track rumbles beneath their feet, the soft groan of the wind blustering through the tunnels as the train approaches, making all the rats on the track lines scuttle away. 

A group is trying to lower a man down over the edge when he shows up.

The hero kid.

The golden boy. 

Whatever his name is. 

He jumps over the groups scurrying up and down the stairs, vaulting the railing completely, landing steadily on his feet, before diving off the side of the train platform just as the train lights peek out from the end of the tunnel. 

The screaming reaches a fever pitch as the train barrels into the station, honking restlessly over and over.

Wonho: that’s his name. Wonho levitates up to the edge of the platform just in time for the train to billow past where he’d dropped over onto the tracks just moments before. The kid in his arms is small. Maybe four or five. Tan skin and tight black curls spilling into his face. He’s clearly knocked the fuck out. 

Wonho finds the boy’s mom in the crowd, and she sobs restlessly until her son is placed in her arms. She drops to her knees with her kid limp in her lap, and Wonho stands in front of her, as if he’s nervous he didn’t do enough. 

His thick muscles are encased in deep purple lycra, face hidden behind a small black mask. It looks like leather. 

“I couldn’t save the backpack,” Wonho says, sounding truly apologetic. 

The mother whimpers as she sobs, but there’s relief and joy in the sound that almost makes it a laugh. She’s pressing desperate kisses to the top of her son’s head when everyone starts clearing out again. They’re all patting Wonho on the back, on the shoulder, on the head as they pass. 

Like he’s Lassie. Like he’s a good dog who’s done a good job. 

The train finally clears out after the conductor gives Wonho a swift high-five and a bellowing whoop of  _ Won-Hoooo _ . When the lights are no longer visible at the end of the tunnel, Wonho jumps back down onto the track and retrieves the kid’s backpack, tiny strap slung over one of his big meaty arms. 

The bag is crushed, but the grinning cartoon face printed onto the plastic front is still somewhat recognizable.

It’s Wonho’s face. Hyungwon knows that isn’t irony, but there must be a word for it. Coincidence doesn’t sound appropriate enough. 

Wonho places the backpack beside the mother, but she doesn’t look up from where she’s sitting on one of the subway benches cradling her son and rocking him as he cries. 

Wonho rubs the back of his neck and lets out a shaky breath, and Hyungwon can’t look away. Maybe it’s because he’s seen this guy on the news everyday for the last four years, or maybe it’s because Wonho seems so much more human than Hyungwon imagined, but Hyungwon really can’t look away.

Wonho turns and meets Hyungwon’s gaze. He smiles, and his cheeks curve sweetly beneath the edge of his mask. He lifts a hand to wave, but Hyungwon bolts for the stairs. 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

“Fuck,” Changkyun groans, nodding up at the screen in their office break room. “That’s you. Right there. Lookin’ like a big dope. You’re on the news.”

Hyungwon sighs and sips his green smoothie. It tastes like what he imagines regurgitated bird food might taste like, only he paid $10 for these ground up leaves and seeds. Changkyun sips his own smoothie happily, but his is mostly peanut butter with a little almond milk and banana. Hyungwon is envious. He should have been less healthy. 

“Yeah, that’s me. It was nuts, man. No one knew what the fuck to do. There was a damn kid just lying unconscious on the tracks, and the train was coming. It was like a movie,” Hyungwon says, remembering the way his ribs felt like they were tightening inexplicably as he just stood there like a useless loaf, watching with every other helpless human as a train came hurtling to crush that kid to mush. 

“But then  _ he _ showed up, huh?” Changkyun coos, eyes bright and sparkly where they’re locked on the television screen. Wonho looks bigger on screen. Hyungwon hadn’t been directly beside him, but he knows he’s taller. He isn’t sure why he assumed Wonho was so tall. 

But his muscles are real. That’s not just the suit. If anything, that suit is  _ barely there _ . Just cupping his body gently like silk. Hyungwon thinks Changkyun’s Wonho Halloween costume had actually been more substantial cover than Wonho’s actual costume. 

“How do you think he decides who to save, you know?” Hyungwon mutters, absently sipping his smoothie and remembering again that it tastes like straw with a hint of maple syrup. 

“I’m not sure,” Changkyun replies, shrugging and standing. “We gotta get ready for this presentation though. You got your metadata sorted out? You know Hyungsoo won’t give us this contract unless we can prove this thing will make him money.”

Hyungwon moans and chucks his smoothie into the trashcan across the room. It splatters green ooze up onto the wall above the can. 

“When did publishing become about money and not about talent, huh?”

“When people stopped buying books,” Changkyun says, placing the sole of his boot at the small of Hyungwon’s back and kicking him out of the break room. “It’s our job to make it seem like the talented ones are also capable of making money.”

“I’m  _ tired _ ,” Hyungwon whimpers, hovering beside their eleventh story window for a moment, watching the taxis and cars and pedestrians all honking and weaving around each other endlessly below. “This city makes me feel like a pumpkin on December 1st.”

“I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean,” Changkyun says, grabbing Hyungwon by his blazer lapel and dragging him over to their cubicles. 

“You know,” Hyungwon explains, skinny arms waving around, “everyone purchases pumpkins in September and October and by December they’re just mush inside but still sorta look like pumpkins so no one throws them out and no one knows what to do with them. And they’re just rotten pulp.”

“In college we would toss our old pumpkins off the balcony into the quad below.”

“Please toss me off the balcony, Kyunnie,” Hyungwon whines, wearily shaking his torso back and forth and stamping his feet in a tantrum. “I’m an old pumpkin.”

“We don’t have a balcony. The whole department would be dead if we did,” Changkyun says, pulling Hyungwon’s rolling black chair out from under his desk and lightly pushing him down into it. He starts wheeling himself towards the break room again, and Changkyun drags him back. 

“The metadata.”

“You’re younger than me, so why are you ordering me around?”

“Because this is America, not Korea, and age means nothing when I’ve worked here longer,” Changkyun declares, shoving Hyungwon’s legs under his desk. “Now,” he whispers seductively, leaning in to breathe the words against Hyungwon’s ear, “get to work.”

“I hate you,” Hyungwon mutters, jiggling his mouse.

“Insubordination,” Changkyun sing-songs.

Hyungwon whines and drops his forehead to his keyboard like osajdioajfpapjsofasf.

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

Hyungsoo is fiddling with the HDMI cable when Hyungwon and Changkyun walk into the conference room for their sales pitch. Hyungsoo looks the way he always does--droopy-eyed but handsome and deceptively sweet. To fight the corporate tradition of business-wear, Hyungsoo always shows up to work in thick cable-knit sweaters and ill-fitting slacks that both probably cost more than Hyungwon’s entire monthly rent. 

As far as bosses go, Hyungsoo isn’t bad. And he’s worked hard to get where he is, which, as far as Hyungwon is concerned, makes him more deserving of loyalty than other people in his position. Starship Publishing isn’t the biggest company in New York, but they also aren’t the smallest. They’re surviving. They make good sales occasionally. 

Of course, most of their income comes from the unauthorized sale of--

“Okay, so today we are pitching  _ Wonho: Alien or Experiment _ , right?” Hyungsoo asks, straightening up next to the projector and starting the PowerPoint slideshow. 

Hyungwon sighs and shoos Hyungsoo away from the laptop. He can do that now--after five years at the company, training to get to this point. He can finally show some sass to the man who made him cry in the bathroom stall for the first few months, saying he should just become a model instead of an editor because his face is all he has. 

Hyungwon can finally swat at Hyungsoo’s hands and hiss at him to move. But very quietly and gently. 

“We were thinking of going in a different direction,” Hyungwon says, clicking to the main slide of the PowerPoint. There’s a cutesy illustration of Wonho holding a bus of school children, having saved them from driving off the Kosciuszko bridge during a torrential storm.  _ Our Friend Wonho _ is the suggested title, but Hyungwon provides alternatives ( _ Friendly New York Wonho  _ and  _ Our Friend Wonho is a Superhero _ ). 

Hyungsoo glares at the screen and sighs. “We’ve talked about this, Hyungwon. It doesn’t sell.”

“Look though,” Hyungwon replies, scrambling through the slides to get to the projected sales slide. “All these hero-based children’s books sold amazingly!”

“They aren’t based on  _ real _ heroes.”

“So you admit he’s a hero,” Hyungwon retorts. “Sir, please. These conspiracy theory books are fucking garbage--pardon my language, Sir--and they don’t even make that much!”

“They make more than frilly children’s books that spread lies.”

“They aren’t lies, Sir. I saw him. This morning.”

“You  _ saw _ him?” Hyungsoo sits up in his chair, leaning forward with elbows on the polished laminate wood table, lips spreading in an excited smirk. “Did you speak to him?”

“No, I mean … no. He was saving a kid from getting squashed by a train,” Hyungwon explains. “But he waved at me?”

“Fascinating. Do you think you could get close to him? For a book?”

Hyungwon gapes at his boss, and then looks over at Changkyun, who is sitting quietly at the end of the table, picking at his nails with Hyungsoo’s fountain pen. Changkyun looks up, eyes widening with a twitch when he sees Hyungwon staring at him, and he shrugs. 

“I’m not sure,” Hyungwon replies slowly, casting his gaze out the window and then back at his boss. “He seems like a really busy person. He’s kind of...you know, a superhero. He doesn’t have time for a sit-down interview, probably.”

“Did he seem friendly? He’s like, an alien, right? Does he even speak English?”

“Haven’t you seen him on the news? Yeah he speaks English. And he’s uncommonly friendly. At least, it seemed like it. He apologized for not saving the kid’s backpack from the train.”

“So he’s fallible. Interesting.”

“Sir, I believe you’re missing the point. He’s really the real thing. He’s really a hero. We should make books that praise him for what he does.” Hyungwon skips forward a few more slides to the photo evidence slide. A picture of Wonho single-handedly putting out a massive fire on a six-story building in East Harlem by flying above it with a fire hose as the fire trucks waited below. A picture of Wonho in the middle of a busy intersection in Flatbush, arms outstretched, keeping a huge tractor-trailer from speeding into oncoming traffic. A picture of Wonho at PS 748 in Bayside, having saved three children who wandered away from the class trip to Gravesend Bay and tried to jump into the water. 

“So prove it to me. Get me a book about what a damn hero he is, based on  _ fact _ , and I’ll make you editor of the project.”

“What,” Hyungwon gurgles, just as Changkyun shrieks, “What?!”

“Sir, I’ve been here longer, and I’ve never been more than an assistant on anything,” Changkyun protests, little tan hand raised. 

“Sorry, kid, he pitched it first,” Hyungsoo replies, rising to his feet and brushing off his ugly slacks. 

“Technically he didn’t pitch  _ anything _ ; you did,” Changkyun whines. 

“Have this book for me in six months, Hyungwon. You can use my rolodex of ghostwriter contacts, if you want.”

“It’s 2017, Sir, no one uses a rolodex,” Hyungwon mutters.

“What do they use then?”

“Uh, technology?” 

“When the aliens come and robots take over, you will all be sorry you trusted ‘technology’ with your valuable information,” Hyungsoo spits, hovering in the doorway with a scowl on his tan face. “And Wonho will have invited them all, and  _ then _ I will rub it all in your faces.”

The door shuts behind him.

Hyungwon turns to Changkyun, whose chin is quivering. 

“Oh c’mon, Kyunnie,” Hyungwon sighs, walking over to pat his shoulder awkwardly. “You’ll get to head a project soon.”

“‘S not fair. I’m a good boy. I deserve to,” Changkyun whimpers, sniffling and dropping his forehead to Hyungwon’s chest. 

“Yes you are. You are a very good boy,” Hyungwon coos, petting Changkyun’s head. “You can help me, okay? I’ll make sure you get on the dedication page.”

“But how are you even going to get close to him?” Changkyun pulls back, and Hyungwon sees that he had entirely been faking his sniffling tears, as Changkyun is wont to do. “You gonna make a big trap?” He starts giggling then, as if the concept is absurd, but Hyungwon’s mind ignores the laughter to process the option. 

“Actually, maybe. Do you think it would work?”

“Hyungwon,” Changkyun hisses. “He has people he needs to save.”

“I know but...I want this book. I need this book. We will never be able to move up anywhere unless we show we’ve managed projects on our own,” Hyungwon replies softly, biting at the inside of his cheek as he ponders a way to attract Wonho’s attention. “Do you think he’d come if I had a loose shoelace and tripped?”

“Hyungwon, that’s stupid. People are getting shot and setting shit on fire in this trash city. He isn’t going to come to you because you’re an idiot who didn’t tie your shoes,” Changkyun snorts, detatching the HDMI cord from Hyungwon’s laptop. “Let’s have a look at that rolodex for a ghostwriter.”

“I’ve never even seen a rolodex in real life.”

“Really? But you’re so  _ old _ .”

Hyungwon slaps the back of Changkyun’s head. Changkyun wheels around, the word  _ insubordination  _ on his tongue, and Hyungwon smacks him hard on the ass. Changkyun grins, appeased. 

“I don’t need the rolodex, anyhow. I’ve already got an idea for who I want to write this book.”

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

Lee Minhyuk is already waiting for Hyungwon at  _ Tir Na Nog,  _ sitting at the bar and nursing what looks like a cosmopolitan. His hair is a pale whitish gray color, glinting in the dim lighting of the irish pub. 

“Hey,” Hyungwon gasps, having sprinted out of work late for their meeting. He whips his coat off and drapes it over the back of the bar stool. “Sorry I’m late.”

Minhyuk nods at his half-empty drink and grins. “It’s cool. I just started without you, is all.”

The new bartender, Jooheon, ties his apron around his waist and pats the previous bartender on the butt as he takes over the shift. He leans over the counter, bright red hair spiked up with gel. “What can I getcha tonight, Worm?”

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Hyungwon sighs. “Double G&T, please.”

“Oh, a double tonight, eh? Celebration?” Jooheon teases, and out of the corner of his eye, Hyungwon sees Minhyuk staring at Jooheon’s deep cheek dimples as he smiles. 

“Sometimes a guy just needs a double, you know?” Hyungwon replies, pulling out his credit card and sliding it across the dark wood counter. 

“ID?” 

“Jooheon,” Hyungwon groans, dropping his face into his hands, “please. My drink. I’m here like every Friday.”

“Rules are rules, Worm,” Jooheon coos, arm outstretched, palm up, fingers waggling. “C’mon. Lemme see it.”

Hyungwon pulls his ID out of his phone case and slaps it into Jooheon’s palm. Jooheon doesn’t even look at it. He’s looking at Minhyuk now because Minhyuk has leaned forward, clavicles exposed under the collar of his loose silky button-down shirt. Staring, really. And Minhyuk is staring back. Hyungwon clambers over the counter a little to grab his ID back from where it is resting uselessly in Jooheon’s palm. 

“Great, now that we’ve established I’m a grown-ass man, can I get my drink?” Hyungwon huffs, slapping his hand down onto the bar top. 

Jooheon’s eyes refocus, and he nods as if coming out of a deep sleep. “Right, right. Of course. Drink.” He turns around to the shelf of liquors and just stands there doing nothing for another minute. 

Hyungwon squeezes his eyes shut and rubs at his eyelids wearily. 

“So what’s this book you want me for?” Minhyuk asks, interrupting Hyungwon’s brooding. 

“You know Wonho?”

A hysterical giggle bubbles out between Minhyuk’s lips. “Do I...know him? Hyungwon, is that a real question?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t want to assume!” Hyungwon cries, grabbing anxiously for his gin and tonic when Jooheon slides it across the bar top to him. He gulps at it desperately. It tastes like pure gin with a hint of sugary fizz and lime. Hyungwon sends Jooheon a mental thank you. 

“Well, considering I’m a living, breathing human on this earth, yes. I know Wonho. What about him? You guys writing another conspiracy theory about how he’s the leader of the alien revolution, hell-bent on finding a way to bring his malevolent alien hordes down to earth to begin the anti-human revolution?”

“Have you actually read our books?”

“No, I saw the reviews on PW. You couldn’t pay me enough to crank out that kinda bullshit, Wonnie. So you better pitch me something juicy,” Minhyuk says, polishing off his cosmo with relish and licking the remnants from the sides of the glass. 

“How is this for juicy: Hyungsoo wants me to write a personal story of getting close to Wonho to reveal what his real motives are for being here and saving people.”

“You mean you’re going  _ undercover _ ?”

“No. I mean, I don’t think so. Do you think I need to?” Hyungwon hadn’t even considered that. 

“You’re gonna tell him you’re getting close to him so you can write a book about him when you know he historically purposefully avoids all interviews?” Minhyuk asks, brows furrowed. “Good luck then.”

“Well--”

“Plus,” Minhyuk interrupts, running his finger over the rim of his empty glass, “you’re coming from the company that has made a career of trashing his name. You really think he’s going to want to just … be your friend? He’ll know you have an ulterior motive, dummy,” Minhyuk adds, smiling pleasantly and winking when Jooheon brings him another cosmo unsolicited. 

“Fuck, you’re right. What do I do?”

Minhyuk cradles his chin in his hand, elbow on the bar top. He slides his gaze to the ceiling, pondering a reply, and then he giggles again, bright and smoky. Jooheon wheels around at the sound. “I’ve got it. What if you’re his damsel?”

“His what?”

“You know, all heroes have a damsel.”

“Like the girl that’s always dangling over a pit of bubbling acid or tied to the train tracks or something?”

“Yeah,” Minhyuk replies, snapping his fingers. “Exactly. We could get you close to him that way. He’s never had his own personal damsel to the best of my knowledge. Heroes can never resist a damsel.”

“But I’m a dude.”

Minhyuk looks him over and shrugs. “You’re pretty enough. Plus you’re already clumsy as hell.”

“I’m not  _ life-threateningly  _ clumsy, Minnie,” Hyungwon protests, grabbing for his drink and somehow letting it slip between his fingers due to the condensation on the outside of the glass. It crashes to the bartop and rocks unsteadily, liquor spritzing out of the top and onto the wood. It somehow doesn’t break. “...see? Everything is fine.”

Minhyuk quirks a dark eyebrow and blinks slowly. “Sure. It’s the best idea I’ve got, though. If it doesn’t work, I’ll do the book for free, how about that?” 

Hyungwon purses his lips. “That sounds too good to be true.”

“I’m telling you. Heroes can never resist a damsel.”

“He’s right,” Jooheon says, wiping the counter where Hyungwon’s drink had spilled. “Haven’t you ever seen  _ Star Wars _ ?”

“I guess I’m cool with being a Leia,” Hyungwon says. “She’s better than most damsels.”

“We’ll put you in a nice structured bikini and drop you off a bridge--how bout that?” Minhyuk smirks over the top of his cosmo glass.

Hyungwon kicks at Minhyuk’s shin under the bar. 

“Hey, no rough-housing in my bar,” Jooheon hisses. 

“This isn’t your bar!”

“It is more my bar than it is yours,” Jooheon argues, waving his dirty rag at Hyungwon’s face. “All you do is make a mess.”

“And  _ pay you _ ,” Hyungwon gripes, finishing his drink and throwing down a 10. “I gotta go plot to ensnare an alien superhero. Minnie: until next time. Jooheon: keep the change.”

“That drink was $9.50!” Jooheon cries as he looks down at the bill. “Cheap praying-mantis jerk!”

“Fifty cents is a big tip when you make just enough money to get a single drink a week, so I’ll pretend you replied to me with nothing but overflowing gratitude.”

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

The L train surprisingly runs without delays all the way back to Hyungwon’s apartment, deep into Brooklyn. He gets off the train and the Jehovah’s Witnesses are there with their standee full of pamphlets and tan trenchcoats as if waiting for him. 

“Sir, can we talk to you about--”

“Do you have a moment for--”

“I have to feed my cat, leave me alone!” Hyungwon shouts, running down the stairs and out the heavy metal doors of the station. The wind sucks him out the last couple feet, billowing the tail of his coat and almost yanking his beanie off his head. 

He’s two blocks down the path to his apartment building when his phone buzzes. 

“Yo, I just got off the train, what’s up?”

“Uh, don’t hate me,” Hyunwoo starts, sounding breathless. 

“What happened? Did you set off the fire alarm again by putting a Hot Pocket into the microwave for 20 minutes instead of 2?” Hyungwon gasps, speed-walking now. 

“Not...not exactly. It’s Monbebe.”

“What happened to her? What did you do to my  _ cat _ , Hyunwoo?”

“She, uh, knocked the screen off the window and is now stuck at the top of the cherry tree outside our building.”

Hyungwon starts sprinting, for once thankful for his crane-like legs. 

He hooks a right onto their street, and he can hear Monbebe yowling at the top of the tree before he even catches sight of her. 

“My  _ baby _ !” Hyungwon yells, standing at the base of the tree. Monbebe looks down, tail flattened against her spine nervously. She shrieks down at him, claws hooked into the bark below her.

Hyunwoo leans out the offending window, expression somehow both stoic and apologetic. “She just jumped out, man, I couldn’t stop her!” 

Hyungwon sighs and stares up the thin trunk of the cherry tree. All the branches are brittle, leaves having dropped to the sidewalk, dead and crunching underfoot as November shifts into December. 

“Think I can climb it?” 

“Not at all, dude. I’ll just call the fire department or something,” Hyunwoo calls back. 

“I don’t want to call the fire department because my cat is stuck in a tree. What is this, a cartoon? I don’t want to draw attention to this shameful event. Our neighbors already think we’re the cause of the eternal weed smell.”

“Everyone knows that’s 4R, Hyungwon.”

“Then why did they put the note on  _ our  _ door that said to use febreeze? With it written in  _ chinese _ ?” Hyungwon counters, grabbing hold of the closest branch and testing if it’ll hold his weight. 

“Hyungwon, this is dumb. Get up here, and we’ll call the fire department,” Hyunwoo chokes out, waving his thick arms like slightly over-saturated noodles out the window. 

“I’m not waiting! That’s  _ Monbebe _ up there,” Hyungwon shouts, hauling himself up with the help of a close-hanging branch and wrapping his legs around the thin trunk of the tree. He reaches out for the next branch and manages to swing his legs up to the branch closest to the ground. He clambers up on top of it and continues grasping for nearby branches until he’s a good ten feet off the ground and absolutely horrified because Monbebe is still incredibly out of reach. 

“I  _ may _ have fucked up,” Hyungwon whines aloud, trying to grab another branch but finding all the topmost branches to be much, much too weak to hold his weight. 

“I told you,” Hyunwoo sighs, gazing miserably down from the window like Rapunzel, if Rapunzel were a beefy tan Korean man in a black tank-top and red Calvin Kleins. 

“About the fire department--” Hyungwon hears a snap, and has a split second to realize that it isn’t his branch that is collapsing. 

Monbebe meeps, terrified, as the branch beneath her little orange paws splits in half, and she drops straight down toward the sidewalk like an anvil. 

“No, no, no!” Hyungwon straightens up and leaps as she hurtles towards the cement, little orange and white legs splayed out, bracing for impact. He manages to wrap his long arms around her and bring her to his chest like he’s receiving a long football pass, before he realizes there is nothing but sidewalk below him either. 

“Oh  _ fuck _ ,” Hyungwon screams, and then it feels like one of those slow-motion scenes in an action film when the bullet passes by over the hero’s head, you know, with the hero’s back bent like a game of limbo, watching the bullet graze his nose before sinking into the wall behind him. Except Hyungwon is the bullet. 

And there are suddenly hard, thick arms bracing him for impact, and Hyungwon lands against a broad, warm chest on the sidewalk. It happens so fast that Hyungwon thinks maybe he’s hit his head and died.

“Holy--” Hyunwoo bellows from the window. “I don’t want to yell the word shit because there are kids here. Fuck, I just said it. Oh, shit. Uh, damn. Oops.”

By now, Hyungwon’s neighbors have peeked their heads out from their own houses and apartment buildings. Everyone starts clapping and whooping, and it takes Hyungwon a good minute or so to realize they are all looking at him. 

And the person below him. 

Hyungwon crawls out of the arms wrapped around his mid-section and rises awkwardly to his feet with Monbebe clutched to his chest. She’s still peeping miserably, and he’s scratching behind her ears over and over to mollify her. 

Wonho rises up from Hyungwon’s sidewalk, rubbing at his bum with a wince. “You okay?” he asks, and his voice is that sweet nasal tenor that Hyungwon vaguely remembers hearing before. 

“Yeah, I,” Hyungwon croaks as Monbebe paws at his chin with her claws out, wondering why they are still outside the comfort of the apartment. “Ow, baby, stop,” he hisses, nuzzling against her with their noses touching. “Sorry. Um. You got here fast?”

“I heard your heartbeat,” Wonho says, easily. “And I li--” he winces and presses his hand to his ear. He whispers something seemingly to himself before he shakes his head and sighs. “I was flying over and saw you in distress.” 

“In...distress,” Hyungwon repeats, somehow hearing Minhyuk in his brain murmuring  _ damsel _ over and over. “Yes, I was. In distress. I am just  _ so clumsy _ , you know?” Hyungwon blurts, making a sound somewhere between a self-deprecating laugh and a groan. 

Up close, Hyungwon can see that Wonho’s skin is so pale it is almost translucent, almost vampiric. There are rivers of veins below his skin, but his blood seems to be a dark purple color, like his costume. His ears are like faerie ears, sticking out from under his mop of carelessly beautiful pale lilac hair. Hyungwon wonders if that is a natural color on the planet he’s from. Are there really hordes of aliens just like him, wandering the streets with inhuman beauty, purple blood, and soft-looking pastel hair?

“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” Wonho asks, tilting his head a little like a perplexed puppy. Is that a familiar alien gesture? Are aliens all just like cute puppies? 

“The A train,” Hyungwon replies, Monbebe pawing at his cheeks and muffling his words as she presses his lips together like a fish. 

“The little boy,” Wonho says, realization dawning over his lovely features. “Gosh that was this morning, wasn’t it?”

Hyungwon nods, shooting glances around to see everyone still watching them. 

“Been a long day,” Wonho adds, rubbing the back of his neck with a gorgeous pale hand. 

“I feel you,” Hyungwon replies, before realizing he’s just equated his day at work with Wonho’s day of literally saving lives. 

Wonho grins at the reply, though, and his cheeks spread wide, eyes crinkling. “Mondays, am I right?”

Hyungwon is about to reply when Monbebe leaps out of his arms and right at Wonho. She hooks her claws into Wonho’s lycra bodysuit, and he barely reacts, just cups her in his hands and lets her drop her head onto his shoulder, purring. 

“Sorry, she’s normally very skittish with strangers,” Hyungwon apologizes, reaching out for her and clicking his tongue to call her back. “Monbebe, please. Wonho has to go save the planet and stuff. Let him go.”

Wonho scritches under her chin, and Monbebe purrs louder, like a jackhammer. “That’s a cute name.”

“Thanks. It was either Monbebe or Monsta. I figured Monsta would just be a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Hyungwon says, striding over and managing to detach his cat from where she’s made a home in Wonho’s costume. She wriggles unhappily in Hyungwon’s arms but eventually settles. “So, um, anyway: thanks for saving me from an unfortunate accident.”

“You were trying to save her, so it’s only right that one hero help another,” Wonho responds, peering down at his chest at where Monbebe’s claws hooked into the lycra. There are eight little perfect claw holes. 

“I’m Hyungwon,” Hyungwon says dumbly.

Wonho touches his finger to his ear again, and Hyungwon sees he has an earpiece in. Interesting.

There must be someone speaking to him through it. 

“I’m Wonho,” Wonho replies.

“Do you want me to pretend I’ve never heard your name or seen your face before?”

Wonho grimaces and tugs at the shell of his sweet floppy ear. “Just courtesy.”

Hyungwon feels guilty for a second. “Sorry. You’re just, uh, a big deal.”

“I have to go,” Wonho says, pressing the earpiece again and sighing. 

“I’ll see you around?” 

Wonho’s lips twitch at the corners. He reaches to give Monbebe another few little head scritches. She licks at his finger. Hyungwon gapes down at her. “Who are you?” he hisses at her. She turns her head away toward Wonho.

“I’ll be around,” Wonho answers. 

Hyungwon stands there on the sidewalk, clutching his love-struck orange tabby, and watches as Wonho leaps back up into the sky effortlessly and disappears overhead. 

From the window, Hyunwoo shouts, “Again, _ suuuuper  _ sorry, man.”

Hyungwon stares up at the darkening sky and shrugs. “Actually, I think I should thank you.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Welcome back, friends. I'm glad this story is being received well thus far. I'm actually having so much fun with it that I never wanna stop writing. Hit me up on twitter with feels @likesatellitez <3

“You can’t,”  _ bap _ , “tell people,”  _ bap _ , “where you live, you big dumb oaf!”  _ Bap, bap, bap _ .

Hoseok holds his arms over his head like a shield as Kihyun smacks him repeatedly with a rolled-up newspaper. 

“I didn’t! I didn’t!” Hoseok cries, letting Kihyun take out his frustration with the weak little jabs, though they don’t feel like much more than having air blown against his skin. 

“Because I screeched in your earpiece,” Kihyun groans, pointing the end of the rolled newspaper right between Hoseok’s eyes. “Who is he, huh? You never stop to chit-chat like that.”

“What? Sure I do. It was only a second,” Hoseok chokes out, moving to hide behind Kihyun’s massive tech setup, all five monitors currently projecting video feed of different parts of the city in green-tinted night mode.  

Kihyun drops down into his pleather desk chair and spreads his legs, slouching back against the tall backrest like he hasn’t had a moment of peace in years. 

Which is probably true. 

About eleven years, actually. 

When Hoseok dropped out of the sky into Kihyun’s backyard right about when Kihyun turned fifteen. When Hoseok’s little space pod carved a deep crater into Kihyun’s mother’s herb garden and singed the earth so nothing would ever grow there again. When Kihyun’s poor single mother, living in her dead-husband’s old townhouse in Morristown, NJ, pulled Hoseok’s nearly comatose alien body from his space pod and wiped the purple blood off on her jeans and said, “Well, I already got one, so what’s the harm?”

“Hoseok,” Kihyun sighs, rubbing the triangle of furrowed skin between his eyebrows. 

“I’m calling Mom,” Hoseok whines, grabbing Kihyun’s cellphone from the corner his desk. Hoseok doesn’t have his own cellphone. Kihyun says he doesn’t trust him with that kind of freedom. Hoseok just wants that app where you can feed a virtual puppy. It isn’t like he has any friends to text. 

Kihyun drops his feet to the hardwoods and wheels his chair over to Hoseok as quickly as he can manage (which isn’t that quickly when Hoseok is literally a super-powered alien being with unknowable power). 

“Mom,” Hoseok cries into the receiver right as Kihyun slides himself to the spot on the floor where Hoseok had been standing moments before. Now, of course, Hoseok is standing on the ceiling, staring down at Kihyun with pale purple-tinted cheeks and a smug expression of victory. 

“I don’t know why I bother,” Kihyun sighs. 

“What did that no-good weasel do now, huh?” comes their mother’s voice over speakerphone. 

“You’re on speaker, Ma!” Kihyun chimes, resigning himself to wheeling back to his desk to watch the monitors. He taps his foot nervously under the wood surface of the desk, and Hoseok can tell he isn’t really paying attention to the monitors at all--still eavesdropping on the phone call. 

“Mom, can you tell Kihyun that I should get a cell phone?”

“We’ve talked about this,” Kihyun huffs, slouching back in his desk chair again. 

“You’ve got your own money, Hoseok baby,” their mother laughs with that sweet smoky sound. “Just go out and get a cell phone.”

“I...hadn’t really thought of that. I never really have time to go shopping or anything,” Hoseok admits sheepishly.

“Is Kihyun workin’ you too hard, baby?” 

“No, Ma, it’s okay,” Hoseok replies, dropping face-down onto his little cot. He and Kihyun share a studio apartment in Washington Heights, with two little twin cots on either side of the room, separated by Kihyun’s massive tech setup.

Kihyun manages their finances, which means he manages his own finances because Hoseok rarely makes any money. Most of the products with his face on them are unauthorized. The only copyrighted product that Hoseok collects income from is a line of very masculine deodorants. _Sweat like a Hero._ _I can be your hero_. 

Kihyun sometimes wants to sue all the companies using Wonho’s brand without permission, but he doesn’t want to draw unwanted attention to the fact that Wonho is a real literal alien residing in the city and not exactly paying taxes. 

Kihyun does IT work freelance for a few startups and small tech magazines in the city under an alias company name, so he brings in an okay amount of income. Enough to keep them in their apartment and fed. 

“Are you boys coming home for Christmas this year?” 

“Christmas? No, but Kihyun is.”

Hoseok sees Kihyun flinch at his desk. He turns the phone off speaker.

“Hoseok, baby, you can’t keep going nonstop like this. Come home for Christmas. Please.”

“Mom,” Hoseok sighs, feeling the pinpricks of tears in his eyes. He hates to cry, not only because it’s embarrassing, but because his tears glow. Even if he tries to hide the fact that he cried, his skin radiates with lost tears. He presses the heels of his palms to his closed eyelids and wills the tears away. “Bad things don’t stop happening just because it’s Christmas.”

“You don’t owe anyone anything, baby,” their mom murmurs, and Hoseok can feel her concern like a weighted blanket dropped over him. Just that slight pressure on his skin incites the tears. 

“I can’t, Mom,” he sniffles, face mostly buried in the pillow, words muffled. “I’m sorry. You know I love you. But you’re wrong. I do owe them. I owe them because I’m the only one who can do any of this. I’m the only one.”

“Baby,” she sighs. Hoseok can picture the way her sharp pale face crumples when he disappoints her. Kihyun has the same sharpness in his features, but their mom has these huge round eyes that make the two of them crumble under the weight of her disappointment with just one look. Hoseok is glad they’re only on the phone. If he had to say no to her face, he’d give in. No question. 

“Mom,” Hoseok says, sobbing now, cheeks beginning to glow with tears visible even through his closed eyelids. “Don’t hate me. I’m sorry. I just can’t. Last Christmas someone tried to bomb the Rockefeller Tree lighting. I had to fly into space and release the bomb before anyone noticed.”

“I know, baby. I know. I just miss you. And I worry. I know you think you’re invincible, but you just can’t ever be sure. We can’t ever be sure.”

For the millionth time, Hoseok thinks, he reassures his mom, “I’ll be careful. I promise. I’ll be careful.”

“Kihyunnie is just trying to protect you, you know,” she says kindly, and Hoseok now wishes she were here to brush her wrinkled fingers over his cheeks like she always did when he cried before. Her hands would faintly glow for a few hours even after she washed them, but she said that it helped guide her to the bathroom in the middle of the night. More glowing tears slip from his eyes. 

“I know. I love you. Both. You’re the only family I’ve ever known. I mean, from what I can remember. And you’ve been so good to me. You’ve always kept me safe. I think I just--I just need to give back. Humans are ... fragile. And I’m not.”

“That you know of.”

“Yes, Ma, that I know of. I like to keep these people safe. It makes me feel like I belong.”

“Oh, baby, you know you belong, don’t you?”

“I’m getting there,” Hoseok murmurs, rubbing at his tired eyelids. An alarm beside his bed starts beeping, sound growing gradually louder, and Hoseok reaches out to smack the buttons. The clock shatters beneath his hand. “Crap. Ma, I gotta go.”

“Get some rest, please,” she pleads.

“I will, I will. I promise.” He needs to stop promising things. “You too, okay? And give Kihyun a call sometimes, yeah? He’s a lonely little nerd.”

Kihyun scoffs from his desk. 

“But we love him.”

“That we do, baby. That we do. Even though I,” she huffs, and Hoseok puts her back on speaker because he knows what’s coming, “suffered through  _ thirty-eight _ hours of labor to birth that little weasel, and I never got the epidural because I thought I wanted to have him  _ naturally _ and  _ make memories _ . Shit, if I could travel back in time, baby, I’d ask them to put me under and suck him out through a hose or something.”

“ _ Ma _ !” Kihyun shrieks, standing up, appalled, from his wheelie desk chair. 

On the screen, Hoseok catches sight of blurred movement and two figures cornered against the facade of a dark building. 

“I have to go,” Hoseok says, clipped, tossing Kihyun the phone as he shoves the window up and dives out into the open air. 

Behind him, Hoseok hears Kihyun swiftly assert, “No, Ma, he definitely did  _ not _ just leap from our sixteenth story window. He took the elevator like a normal human.”

The air is cold, Hoseok knows, but it feels nice against his skin as he cuts through the wind on the way down Broadway. Hoseok always finds himself traveling in the direction of traffic, feeling like he should obey traffic laws even as he flies miles above the cars. He cuts a right onto 80th, and sees the crowd gathered near the Museum of Natural History. It feels dirty, having to clean up a scuffle right by the place that always brought joy to him and Kihyun when they were younger. Even as teenagers, they’d gawk at the humongous whale hanging from the ceiling, laying on their backs beneath it, as if picturing it swimming above them on the surface of the sea as they lounged against the sand in the deep. 

Hoseok feels the need to vindicate the whale. And his memories. 

There are five boys, teenagers, probably, gathered around two young girls. They might be high school age, all seven of them. Hoseok lands between them, and one of the boys raises a gun, aimed at Hoseok’s forehead. It must be his father’s gun. It looks much too large in his skinny little hand. 

“Hey,” Hoseok says, hands raised. “No need for that, friend.”

“Don’t call me  _ friend _ , freak,” the one with the gun raised spits, physically hocking saliva down at Hoseok’s feet. 

Another boy, a taller, ganglier one, elbows the one with the gun and hisses, “Hey, man, that’s Wonho. Chill out.”

Hoseok cranes his head and nods at the girls. “Go home. I’ve got this.”

One of them bursts into hysterical sobs. The other grabs her mitten-clad hand and starts sprinting up towards the 86th St. subway station. 

“Don’t you guys have homework or parents or anything?” 

“You don’t understand anything, Alien Scum,” Gun Boy grits out, hand shaking where it holds up the heavy gun. “This is our city. You don’t belong here. Go  _ home _ .”

“This is my city too,” Hoseok asserts, patting his chest. “I protect this city.”

“We don’t need your protection. We don’t want it,” another boy, shorter and thicker in stature stammers. “This city has a fuckin’ food chain, and no one asked for you to come in and fuck it up.”

“What, and your food chain stipulates you can assault girls because you have a gun and they don’t? What are you, fifteen?”

“Sixteen,” they chime in unison. The one with the gun finally drops his hand to his side, switches the gun to his other hand, and wiggles his aching wrist, clearly exhausted from holding it up so long. “And we weren’t assaulting them.”

“Uh huh, because they sure seemed interested in your attention. You know, while they were cowering and crying,” Hoseok replies. “Go home, kids. I know you want attention or--or prestige--or whatever it is. But this is stupid. It’s nearly midnight. Where do you live? I’ll walk you all home and--”

The tall, lanky boy grabs for the gun and clicks the safety off. Hoseok has a split second to reach up and grab the bullet in mid-air right before it lodges itself in his chest. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would hurt like hell. Hoseok has taken a few bullets to the chest to know it’s a real pain in the ass to dig the bullet out before his skin sews itself back up around it. 

The bullet sinks into his palm as he catches it, and it stings like having the meat of his hand carved out with a serrated spoon. Purple blood trickles to the sidewalk and Hoseok scuffs at it with his boot. He drops the bullet into one of his pockets. 

“Okay, now that that’s settled, how about that walk home? Can I call you an Uber?”

Hoseok glances around at the boys gaping at him for a few seconds before one of the quieter, smaller ones in the back raises a hand. “I’ll take that Uber. I live in East Harlem. 101st.”

“Anyone else?” 

They all tentatively raise their hands. “We live in the same building,” they admit. 

Clicking the speaker on his earpiece, Hoseok says, “Ki, can I get an Uber to the Museum of Natural History, please? A van for five, if they have one. If not, two cars’ll work.”

Kihyun sighs heavily in his ear. 

“This is the only career in this goddamn city where we end up  _ spending _ money instead of  _ making  _ it.”

“What kind of car is it?”

“Hyundai Elantra. Driver is Aarav.”

“Thanks. I’ll be home in a bit. Gonna fly over them to make sure they get home safe.”

“We can follow their route on my phone, you know. There’s a tracking map.”

“I know. Just in case.”

“Okay. Get home safe, please. You wanna play some Settlers of Catan when you get back?”

“Sure, Ki. See you soon.”

“I’m ordering a pizza too.”

“Sweet. Sausage and--”

“Peppers, I know.”

“I love you,” Hoseok coos. 

“Ew. Your driver is pulling up. Get home before the pizza and I’ll let you pick first slice.”

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

A little over a week later, Hoseok is flying over Penn Station and Madison Square Garden to make sure the Rangers game crowd spilling out of the Garden isn’t drunkenly inciting fights with fans of the opponent team. Everyone seems to be somberly accepting the team’s defeat, so Hoseok continues flying up 8th avenue. 

There’s a figure running down 39th St., clearly chasing something. Hoseok swoops down lower to trace their movements, and he realizes it’s a man pitifully pursuing a small tan and white Corgi. 

Hoseok watches for a moment, amused, as the Corgi, with it’s stumpy legs, outruns this six-foot human male for a block and a half. Dropping down onto the sidewalk, Hoseok squats just in time to scoop the dog into his arms. 

The human nearly collapses against the nearest building, panting desperately, hands on his knees. “Lord, that is one fast stuffed fuzzy sausage.”

“This your dog?” Hoseok asks, standing up with the Corgi in his arms. It squirms for a brief moment before settling happily with its little head on his shoulder. 

“God, no. It was tied up in front of my building. There were like seven dogs tied up to this one tree, and--”

_ “Hoseok. Come in, Hoseok,” _ comes Kihyun’s voice in his ear. He ignores it. 

The human raises his head, and it’s the same human from a little while ago. With the cat. Monbebe. In the tree. 

Hyungwon. 

His cheeks are round and flushed pretty pink. His lips are chapped from the cold but still gorgeously swollen and fluffy. Hoseok has never seen a mouth like his before. And his limbs are so long and lithe, so different from Hoseok’s that he wants to study them with fingertips up close. 

“Oh,” Hyungwon says, as if there are other men who fall to the earth from the sky to rescue runaway puppies. “It’s you.”

“You seem to have an animal problem,” Hoseok observes, laughing softly, breath coming in puffs of chilled fog. His body runs colder than a human’s, but he can still feel the chill as his breath leaves between his lips.

“I tripped over his leash, and it came untied. The dogs were probably getting walked by a walker who stepped into the bodega or something.”

“Hellooooo,  _ Hoseok _ ,” Kihyun repeats. “ _ We have an attempted robbery in Hell’s Kitchen. 51st and 9th _ .”

“One second,” Hoseok says, finger pressed to the speaker on his earpiece. “I’m busy.” And then to Hyungwon: “We should get this dog back, huh?” He nods at the little chubby stump of dog in his arms. 

“Yeah,” Hyungwon breathes, staring at Hoseok with wide, dark eyes under soft dark hair. “If you have to go, though, I can just--”

“No, no worries at all. I’m in a lull. I’ll walk over with you. You might trip again and lose him.”

Hyungwon snorts and tucks his hands into the pockets of his navy blue peacoat. He looks like a model. Hoseok had no idea what a model was until he moved to New York. Now he sees them everywhere, always running around to castings and shows. Hyungwon is like one of those campaign models that has ‘unconventional beauty.’ A tiny round face with giant unique features and a strangely captivating combination of reedy limbs encased in wool and denim. 

“Does the public know that Wonho the gentle mascot of this great city is so condescending to its citizens?” 

“Well you’re my first repeat customer, so,” Hoseok shrugs, following Hyungwon down the sidewalk to 37th, where they find the gaggle of leashed dogs still roped around the thin trunk of a tree. Hoseok grabs the empty leash from between the teeth of a little black Pomeranian, and hooks it back onto the collar of the Corgi, who yips unhappily when Hoseok tries to put him back down onto his own feet.

“I’m Hyungwon,” Hyungwon says suddenly.

Hoseok turns to him from where he’s squatted to pet the dogs, brows lifted. “You said that last time,” he replies, smirking crookedly. 

“Oh. You remembered, huh?” Hyungwon sniffles in the cold and rubs at his nose with the sleeve of his coat.

“Not many people tell me their names,” Hoseok answers, squeaking a little as all the dogs start yipping and pawing at him. He tries to pet them all, moving as quickly as he can from one dog to the next, and Hyungwon observes in silence for a few minutes. His arms are probably purple blurs as they move through the air and over the heads of the dogs. It might be disconcerting.

“Animals seem to really like you,” is all Hyungwon eventually says. 

“Something in my DNA maybe.”

Hyungwon runs his tongue over his chapped lips. Hoseok watches. 

“Do you want to--”

_ “EARTH TO HOSEOK. COME IN HOSEOK. THE  _ ATTEMPTED _ ROBBERY IS NOW A FULL-FLEDGED ROBBERY. THREE FIGURES FLEEING DOWN 53RD. IF YOU DON’T GET YOUR TUCHUS IN GEAR IN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES I’M RESCINDING YOUR STARCRAFT PRIVILEGES FOR A WEEK.” _

Hoseok jolts and rises up to his feet, wincing as Kihyun’s nagging voice grates into his skull. He presses his finger to his earpiece and relents. “Okay, geez. I’m not far. Calm down. I’ll be there in a second.”

_ “A second is too long. Let’s go. Up and at'em, big boy.” _

Hoseok grimaces. Hyungwon tilts his head expectantly. Hoseok smiles, just to see if Hyungwon’ll smile back. He does, and his smile spreads his cheeks so wide, and his lips thin out just ever so slightly, and his eyes turn to sweet crescents. 

“I have to go,” Hoseok says miserably. 

“I figured. Go save the city, Beefcake,” Hyungwon chuckles, patting Hoseok on the bicep. Hoseok shivers. The only person who has touched him so casually in the last year at least has been Kihyun.

If Hyungwon notices the way Hoseok breathes out shakily at the touch, he doesn’t say anything. Hoseok swallows thickly and leaps up, pushing off the side of the office building beside them before taking off into the sky. 

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

Kihyun is scowling when Hoseok gets home later that evening. He spins around in his wheelie chair like an old movie villain, stroking Tripod, the 3-legged stray cat that sometimes finds his way to paw at their window on the sixteenth floor via the fire escape. Tripod leaps from Kihyun’s lap and hobbles over to Hoseok, blinking his cloudy blue eyes one at a time before rubbing his frazzled gray head against Hoseok’s ankle.

“Hey, buddy,” Hoseok says, dropping down to scratch at his patchy, scabby chin. “Did you feed him?”

“Left tuna on the windowsill this morning.” 

“Did you have some tuna, buddy?” Hoseok coos, and Tripod purrs like a faulty motorboat engine. He sniffs at Hoseok’s fingers and recoils for a moment, little ragged face scrunched up unhappily. 

“He smells the dogs,” Kihyun observes. 

“They were cute. I felt bad that they were all chained up. It’s cold out. Can’t dogs feel the cold?” Hoseok shucks off his boots and peels his lycra suit off, tossing it onto the end of his bed. In his gray boxer briefs, Hoseok collapses back onto his little cot and stares up at their off-white popcorn ceiling. “Why do humans keep pets anyhow?”

“To make them happy,” Kihyun says, clicking his tongue to call Tripod over to him, but Tripod hobbles over to Hoseok’s bed instead. He mewls weakly from the floor until Hoseok rolls over and scoops him up onto the mattress. Kihyun scowls again and goes back to typing at his three different keyboards.

“But wouldn’t they be happier out in the wild or whatever? Aren’t they just animals?”

“They were wild at one point in evolutionary history, I guess. But now they’re just domesticated. I mean, Tripod isn’t. He’s feral. He probably lives in some kinda feral cat colony. That’s why his ear is clipped. They must’ve neutered him when he was younger and released him.”

“That’s sad. They don’t find them homes?” Hoseok angles his chin down against his chest so he can watch Tripod leaning into his pets, his pink nose splotched with brown, his whiskers looking all bent like he’d been electrocuted.

“Most of them are too feral to be adopted.” 

Hoseok looks over at Kihyun and finds him playing Starcraft on one monitor, coding on another, and keeping city surveillance on the last one. 

Tripod drops his head to Hoseok’s thigh and wheezes jauntily. Hoseok scratches his spiny back. “He doesn’t seem feral to me.”

“He comes and goes. He wouldn’t like it being cooped up here in this cereal box of an apartment.”

“I feel that,” Hoseok concurs. “Ki, I dunno how you stay in here all day; honestly, I would go nuts.”

“I’ve already gone nuts. I started going nuts the day a goddamn goody-two-shoes teenage alien landed in my backyard. I had to hose you down outside before Mom let you inside, remember? Just grabbed the garden hose, and you stripped fuckin’ naked outside in view of all our neighbors (who luckily weren’t outside), and you were all...purple.”

“I got knocked around my space pod a lot in that landing. I was pretty bloody, from what I remember.”

“Your blood is like weird purple sap. Like the inside of a blueberry Pop Tart.”

“That’s gross, Ki. Don’t talk about my blood like that. I don’t talk about your weird watery ketchup blood like that.”

“You just did!” 

Hoseok huffs and pulls Tripod onto his chest, petting him in long, heavy strokes that make the cat burble gleefully. 

“I wonder what happened to his leg.”

“Why? Wish you coulda been there to save it? He was probably born without it. Some kinda incestual birth defect.”

“Ew,” Hoseok whines. 

“So who is this guy, hm?” Kihyun stops typing. It’s weirdly silent now. 

Hoseok’s hand stalls on Tripod’s head, and Tripod gurgles until he starts petting him again. “What guy? I’ve met a lot of guys in this city.”

“The one you stopped to chat with again. The Bushwick Cat Kid, right?”

“What? No. Different guy,” Hoseok lies.

“I have cameras, you know. I could see him clear as day.”

“You didn’t see him up close,” Hoseok protests. “It was a different guy. All you humans look the same.”

“Speciesist!” Kihyun cries, throwing his memory foam neck pillow at Hoseok. It hits Tripod, and he yowls and hops onto the windowsill clumsily before dropping out onto the fire escape. 

“You scared away my only friend.” Hoseok pouts. 

“Will you fold your suit, please? That thing wasn’t cheap, you know. And it takes forever to dry when we sink wash it,” Kihyun grumbles, resuming his loud typing between all three keyboards. 

Hoseok sneers grumpily and grabs his suit from the end of his bed. He’s in the midst of folding it when something drops off his sleeve. Some kind of a sticker. There’s a faded barcode on the sticker, and above it in the white space, there’s writing on it. Hoseok taps the adhesive side and stares down at it on his fingertips. There’s a series of seven numbers on it. 

“Hey, Ki,” Hoseok calls out to where Kihyun is grabbing the kettle to fill it with water for ramen. He has his white kitty-ears headband on, about to cross the hallway to fill the kettle and wash his face for bed. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m gonna run out for a second, actually. I think I saw something on the monitors.”

Kihyun rubs at his tired eyes, rimmed with dark, sleepless bruises. “Mm? Okay. Be quick, though. Have you even slept the last couple days?”

“I don’t need it like you do. Eating is enough. Feel free to eat without me, though, and head to bed.”

“Buzz me if you need backup,” Kihyun yawns, narrow face wrinkling comically as his little mouth stretches around the yawn. 

“You got it. Shut the window when I go. It’s too cold to leave open. Mom’ll kill me if you get sick before Christmas.”

“Nah, she’d love a reason to baby me.” 

Kihyun disappears into the shared bathroom across the hall, the heavy wood door swinging shut behind him. 

Hoseok quickly hops into a pair of jeans and a big gray hoodie, hood up and hanging in his face. At Kihyun’s desk, Hoseok pulls open the drawer that holds his personal plastic safe. It’s one of those children’s toys, but it works just fine. He spins the combination in and pulls out a wad of twenties, tucking them into his front hoodie pocket. 

He jumps through the open window and drops down to street level to walk the few blocks to the Boost Mobile store. The grizzled man behind the counter is watching NBC News on a little boxy television set above their heads on the wall. Hoseok sees video footage of himself, as Wonho, saving an old woman in Briarwood. A single mother who was struck by a motorcyclist and would have bled out if he hadn’t flown her to the hospital. 

“Can I help you?”

“I’d like a phone, please.”

“Just...a phone? Any kind?”

“Is there a kind I can pay for now and not need to receive a bill monthly?”

“Uh, sure. Need to hide it from someone, man? Your wife?”

“Oh, no.” Hoseok’s face crumples in misery. “That’s awful. Do people really do that?” 

The man, Jerry, his nametag says, grabs a box from behind the counter. “Prepaid. This is supposed to be month to month, but if you pay cash, I’ll give you six months.”

Hoseok pulls the wad of cash from his pocket and puts it down on the counter. “This work?”

Thumbing through the bills, Jerry counts under his breath with a hint of an accent Hoseok doesn’t recognize. “Yeah. This’ll work.” He cuts open the box with a pocketknife and pulls a black flip-phone from between two pieces of thick white styrofoam. The phone comes on when Jerry presses his thumb into the power button, and the screen lights up with a few little chirping sounds. “You don’t have any data you need to send over, right?”

“No. I’ve only got one number.” He holds up the sticker. 

“Right,” Jerry replies slowly, unsure, taking the sticker and programming the number into Hoseok’s new contacts. “You got a name for this contact?” 

“Hyungwon.”

“Last name?”

“He’s...just Hyungwon.”

Jerry furrows his brows but shrugs. A second later, he slides the phone over to Hoseok on the counter. “You don’t have any bells or whistles with this little guy, but it can make calls and texts.”

“I wouldn’t want bells or whistles,” Hoseok says, blinking in confusion. “That seems like an unnecessary attention-bringer, right?”

Jerry’s features pull together in amusement and concern. “Right. Anyhow, uh, you have a good night then.”

Hoseok walks out, cradling his little black phone between his palms. He’s never really owned anything before. It feels like a lot of responsibility. He senses the guilt already gnawing at his guts for keeping something from Kihyun, but their mom did say he can use his own money how he wants. It’s his early Christmas gift to himself. 

And now he has a number he can call. 

Hoseok could maybe have a friend.

A friend that isn’t a feral old cat with three legs.

He taps the button on the right side of the keyboard to bring up his contacts and stares down at Hyungwon’s name written in boxy text. Hoseok frantically clicks on another button to make the contact screen go away, but instead he manages to press dial. 

He panics. But he doesn’t shut the phone. His heart races, and it feels strange. He lets the call go through. 

There’s a rustle as the other line clicks on. Then a smack of lips. A little yawn-like grumble. A fuzzy rumble of: “Whozzis?”

“H--Wonho. It’s Wonho.”

“ _ Who _ ? Oh  _ shit _ .” There’s another rustle like a comforter being tossed aside, and a shuffle of footsteps. A hand cupped over the receiver and a whisper of: “I didn’t think you’d actually call. Figured the sticker would fall off while you were flying faster than a speeding jet or whatever.”

“I rarely fly that fast over the city. It isn’t safe. I could hit some ducks or something.”

“Right. So, you have a phone?”

“I do now.”

“Right. And you’re calling me at ...12:29 a.m. because?”

“It was an accident.”

“You accidentally called me?”

“...Yes.”

“Okay, then. You, uh, you wanna get some pancakes sometime?”

“You and me?”

“I’m not asking you if you want to buy yourself pancakes sometime, Beefcake. You wanna get pancakes with me, yes or no?”

“Right now?”

“Are you currently saving the city?”

“I was gonna sleep, actually.”

“You sleep?”

“In spurts. Sorta. It’s more like a brief hibernation. A recharge.”

“Weird. So...raincheck?”

“Yeah. I’ll, um, I’ll call you.”

“Right. I’ll be here.”

Hoseok bites at the inside of his cheek and tastes the bitter thick tang of his own blood. “I’ll be everywhere, but I’ll find you.”

Hyungwon laughs quietly into the receiver. The sound travels into Hoseok’s veins and rumbles around like thunder caught in a glass jar. Is this what having a friend is like? Like sweet gentle reassuring warmth spreading through him? 

“Good night, Wonho.”

“Good night, Hyungwon.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I know I owe y'all a WFtIS chapter, but this story has its claws in me. Come yell at me on twitter @likesatellitez. I'm really struggling with slow burn. How do people do this. As always, your comments and kudos sustain me! <3

“She’s wallowing,” Hyunwoo says, sniffling and waving his spoon. 

“She is not wallowing. She’s a cat. This is just how her face is,” Hyungwon protests, defensively pulling Monbebe to his chest, where she paws at his throat, kneading and burbling lifelessly. 

“ _ Wallowing _ ,” Hyunwoo sings, shoveling Mini Wheats into his mouth and chewing open-mouthed and absurdly loudly, visibly shifting the brown mush around over his molars.

“You’re disgusting,” Hyungwon scoffs as Monbebe mewls weakly and slithers out of his arms and onto the floor in a miserable puddle of fur. “Okay, so she isn’t as  _ peppy _ as usual.”

“She misses her boyfriend, Wonho,” Hyunwoo says, getting up from their tiny ‘living room’ loveseat and dropping his bowl of leftover cereal milk next to Monbebe on the floor. She lifts her little snout and sniffs at the top of the bowl before flopping back down onto the hardwoods. 

“Hey, girl, don’t you want the milk?” Hyungwon chirps, prodding at her ears teasingly. She doesn’t even swat at him. Just allows him to torment her, resigned. “Fuck. My poor lovesick baby.”

“So, just to be clear though,  _ you  _ don’t have any actual interest in this guy, right? It’s just for the book?” Hyunwoo asks, rifling through his dresser in their kitchen (it’s too large for his cardboard box of a room). He withdraws a pair of thick wool trousers and tugs them on over his meaty man legs. Hyungwon feels the daily twinge of jealousy nibbling at his core. 

“I don’t even know him. He’s an alien, dude,” Hyungwon answers, inspecting his thumbnail and bitten-down cuticles. 

“So? He’s the city’s golden child. I knew guys in college at NYU with his picture taped up in their rooms. He’s prime spank bank material, Wonnie. You can’t deny that.” 

“Please don’t tell me about your spank bank,” Hyungwon groans. 

“It isn’t just mine. It’s this whole city. No matter your gender or sexuality, you are hot for Wonho,” Hyunwoo declares, buttoning his black silk shirt and tucking it into his trousers. “I have a meeting with Jihyo’s family today to pick a venue, so I gotta head out. I wish you luck resurrecting your lovelorn feline.”

“I see you’ve been working on that vocabulary for your Columbia-educated lawyer fiancee,” Hyungwon observes, fiddling with his cellphone in his lap. He’s been waiting for Wonho to call him for pancakes for a week now, and, sure, he knows the guy is busy saving lives (just the other day Hyungwon watched him in the news flying between a drive-by shooter and a group of young girls getting out of junior high school), but still. A week is a long time to wait for some measly pancakes. 

“I never thought I would feel inadequate for  _ only _ being an NYU graduate, but here we are,” Hyunwoo sighs, running a lint roller over his slacks and picking up all of Monbebe’s fur on the adhesive. “How many family gatherings must I suffer through listening to Jihyo’s grandmother bemoan the loss of Jihyo’s nice Columbia boyfriend whose parents owned that chain of fried chicken places in Ktown and Flushing?”

“Well did you tell them that you were once called the American Bi Rain by your hip hop instructor at NYU?” Hyungwon asks, scooping Monbebe up off the floor, and she sags in his arms like a wet sheet. 

“Why on earth would I tell them I took  _ dance _ ? They know me as a Financial Advisor and that is all they will know me as.”

“Until you whip out those fly-ass moves at the wedding reception, right?” Hyungwon says, waggling his brows and dancing in his seat, Monbebe clutching to his sweatpants with her claws extended as he jostles her up and down. 

Hyunwoo groans and rubs at his face. “I wish we had eloped when she asked me originally.”

“You thought she was joking about her family, huh?”

“Everyone always  _ says _ their family is the worst, you know? I thought she was just trying to spare my feelings. I was wrong. I was so fucking wrong,” Hyunwoo wheezes, dropping the lint roller back into his drawer. 

“At least you have a beautiful, successful, loving fiancee,” Hyungwon points out, fiddling with Monbebe’s little fuzzy ears as she starts to weakly purr, as if reluctant to admit she’s a little bit content. 

Hyunwoo’s cheeks flush pink, and he shrugs on his peacoat over his suit. “I mean she’s no Wonho.”

“I’m not trying to  _ date _ the alien hero, Hyunwoo,  _ please _ ,” Hyungwon moans in frustration. “I’m doing this for the book. The b-o-o-k.”

“Uh huh.”

“Get out of here before I call Jihyo’s grandmother and tell her about your contemporary dance piece where you wore all black mesh and rolled around with greased up dancer boys to an Enya song,” Hyungwon cries, wagging his fist at Hyunwoo. “Out!”

“You would never!” Hyunwoo wrenches open the door to their apartment but turns around to smirk. “Have fun on your date. I hope he flies you to the stars.”

“Out!!!” Hyungwon shrieks. 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

Minhyuk meets Hyungwon at his local cafe, Espresso Yourself. He’s seated in the back at one of the natural wood tables with wrought-iron legs. The walls are painted with muted-color geometric murals and local art pieces hoping to be sold. A bunch of students are seated at the long wood table near the power outlets, laptops open and headphones clamped over their ears as they study. Two girls are huddled together sharing a piece of carrot cake, feeding each other, and Hyungwon’s heart twitches in envy. 

“Why are you always early?” he pants (having sprinted from his apartment), dropping down across from Minhyuk with his mug of drip coffee clasped between his chilled palms. 

“Because I don’t sleep until noon,” Minhyuk taunts, picking at a banana nut muffin with his fingers. 

“I slept until  _ eleven _ , thanks,” Hyungwon retorts, stirring his spoon around to mix in the four sugar packets and cream he’d added to his coffee. He sips it. Perfect. Minhyuk eyes the mug and then looks down at his own black coffee. “Don’t say anything. I don’t say anything about you drinking cosmopolitans.”

“Whatever,” Minhyuk snorts, waving away that comment. “So what’s up?”

“So,” Hyungwon begins, nervous about Minhyuk’s reaction, “your plan sort of worked?” 

Minhyuk drops his palms to the table and leans closer, eyes shining bright with curiosity. “Tell me everything.”

“I met him,” Hyungwon explains, tapping his nails against the side of his warm mug. “Twice. He saved me when I tried to get Monbebe out of a tree. And he helped me chase a dog down the sidewalk in midtown.”

“Well that’s--” Minhyuk pauses, fingertip tapping against his cupid’s bow. “Not  _ quite _ what I was thinking, but I guess it worked so…”

“They were both entirely accidental meetings, though,” Hyungwon adds, peering down into the milky surface of his coffee. 

“So it’s  _ fate _ ,” Minhyuk whispers excitedly, licking his lips and whipping his phone out of his coat pocket to type furiously into a virtual notepad. “This makes for a fascinating twist in the book for sure.”

“What? No. I mean, what?” 

“The hero  _ falls _ for the damsel,” Minhyuk hisses, eyes wide and crazy with dilated pupils, fingers rapidly swiping over his screen. “Tell me about his eyes. Tell me about his voice. Tell me everything.”

“I--” Hyungwon croaks. “I don’t know? His eyes are really dark. I don’t think he even has an iris. It just looked like a giant pupil. But kind of glassy? Shiny? He’s an alien.” Hyungwon sits up and tries to lean a little to see Minhyuk’s screen. “And we aren’t in love. Please scratch that angle. Minhyuk, please. Stop typing. Are you just typing everything I say right now?” Minhyuk doesn’t answer, just keeps typing. “Minhyuk. Stop. Jesus, fuck, stop!”

“His voice, Hyungwon.”

“I don’t know!” Of course he does. He’s thought about Wonho’s voice for a week now. “It’s...uh...deep, but not like mine. He has, he kinda has a lisp? It’s subtle, but he slurs his words a little. His voice is really warm? But not smoky warm. Warm like endearment warmth.”

Minhyuk grins down at his phone like a madman. “You have to see him again. Immediately. Go trip into traffic or something.”

“What the fuck, dude. No. What if he doesn’t come? Then I’m just dead.”

“In the name of love. And art.”

“I don’t have to trip into traffic to see him anyhow,” Hyungwon says, before thinking. “I have his number.”

Minhyuk’s phone clatters to the table, and he releases a shrill caw like a crow choking on raw corn kernels. “You. Have. Wonho’s. Phone. Number?!”

Hyungwon wishes he could swallow his own head. Just wrap his bottom lip up and over his hair and down to the nape of his neck. Just swallow it down and stop existing. “Yes?”

“Call him,” Minhyuk shrieks, ignoring the annoyed glares his outburst garners from the other cafe patrons. “Right now! Hyungwon, right now!”

“No way,” Hyungwon protests, shrinking into himself. “Fuck that. He’s probably out saving a baby from drowning or something. I’m not gonna call him just so you can--”

Minhyuk falls out of his chair and is on Hyungwon in an instant. He digs his greedy paws into Hyungwon’s coat pockets and jean pockets and just feels Hyungwon up in the middle of the cafe like it means nothing. Hyungwon beats at his hands and whines, but Minhyuk successfully yanks his phone from his hoodie pocket. 

“Unlock it,” Minhyuk hisses, looking utterly wild as he waves the phone in Hyungwon’s face. 

“No.” Hyungwon crosses his twig arms over his chest and tries to pretend he isn’t alive. “Nope.”

Minhyuk looks down at the phone and taps his fingers on the screen. It clicks open. “Your birthday, Hyungwon, really?”

Hyungwon gapes, lips especially fish-like as they part and pinch together in shock. “Please, Minnie, don’t--”

“Don’t ‘Minnie’ me now that I’ve got you where I want you.” Minhyuk thumbs through the contacts and dials. 

And then all of Hyungwon’s hard work keeping himself from calling Wonho even though it’s been a whole fucking week since he asked him for pancakes is lost. Now he’s just some desperate baby. 

Minhyuk thrusts the phone in Hyungwon’s face as it dials. Hyungwon listens to each ring with his heart beating in double-time. Minhyuk’s breathing is insanely shallow and exhilarated. 

And just like that: it goes to voicemail. There’s no personal message. Just a computerized voice saying he’s reached such and such a number and to leave a message after the beep. Minhyuk doesn’t end the call. Just waits for Hyungwon to speak. 

_ Beep _ .

“Uh. Hey, hi, Wonho? It’s, um, it’s Hyungwon. I hope you’re doing well?” God, what an idiot. Of course the impervious-to-harm alien superhero is doing well. “I was hoping you’d be available today for those pancakes, but obviously you’re busy. Doesn’t saving the world get any paid time off? Hah, that was a joke.” He clears his throat and mentally slaps himself. Hard. “Anyhow, uh, you have my number, so just let me know when you wanna get those flapjacks, huh? Cool. Uh, bye.” He pauses. “It’s Hyungwon. Wait, fuck, I said that already. Oh, shit, sorry I swore. Agh, I did it again.” He grabs Minhyuk’s wrist and wrestles the phone away, quickly ending the call with a rush of anxious breath. 

“Wow,” Minhyuk gasps. 

Hyungwon kicks both his feet at Minhyuk’s shins. “I can’t believe you made me embarrass myself like that! You’re fired! You’re beyond fired! I’m setting you literally on fire! I hope you burn to death!”

Minhyuk hops back and rubs at his left shin with a pout. “Aw, c’mon, Wonnie. That wasn’t so bad. It was cute, actually. You’re like a lovestruck kid.”

“I am  _ not _ lovestruck. He’s an  _ alien _ , Minhyuk.”

“I think the PC term is space-immigrant,” Minhyuk whispers, forehead creased in concern, voice coming quietly between cupped palms. 

Hyungwon drops his head to the table with a heavy thunk, and his coffee sloshes unsteadily. 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

Hyunwoo doesn’t come home that night. He usually stays out friday nights. Just texts Hyungwon around 10 pm to tell him Jihyo’s family asked him to stay the night at their place in Long Island. They want to go to church with him in the morning to meet with the pastor about their ceremony. 

Hyungwon sits with Monbebe and flips through Netflix for a couple minutes, unable to find anything to capture his attention. He allows himself to wonder if Wonho lives alone. If he has any pets. Animals seem to love him. Monbebe hasn’t even enjoyed her weekly catnip treat with her usual fervor since she met Wonho. 

He grabs his laptop and flips it open after settling on reruns of a crime procedural drama on Netflix, and he types Wonho’s name into Google. A series of news articles pop up. Scanning their pages, Hyungwon discovers the same line appearing in almost all of them.  _ Wonho has declined our request for an interview _ . 

The longest quote Hyungwon can find from Wonho in any of the hundreds of articles is one in a story about how he pulled a truck filled with pneumonia vaccines from a ravine and flew the driver to the closest hospital just in time for them to resuscitate him. 

All he says is: “I’m glad he [the driver] is okay. Sorry I was so late.”

Does Wonho apologize every time he saves someone? Always wondering if he’s done enough?

Hyungwon bookmarks a few articles to send to Minhyuk for the book and tries to focus by cleaning out his email inbox. The little swish from his virtual trash can satisfies his anxiety for all of six minutes, and then he’s tapping his feet on the floorboards rapidly again. His heart won’t stop racing. 

Monbebe watches his legs twitching and paws at his sweatpants, getting her claws stuck in the black cotton fabric with a sad little mewl. Hyungwon shuts his laptop and reaches down to dislodge her nails, and she stares up at him with the most miserable expression he thinks a cat can feasibly make. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” he coos, rubbing her paw with a bitter frown. 

Her ears twitch, and Hyungwon realizes she’s heard his phone buzzing beside him on the couch. The screen is lit up with Wonho’s name. It’s as if she knew. 

Hyungwon glances at Monbebe, and she glances back. He grabs for the phone frantically, and she leaps up onto the couch, like she’s trying to listen. He puts Wonho on speaker. 

“Hello?”

“Oh, you answered. Sorry it’s late.” His voice is like dark melty molasses.

Monbebe starts to purr like a chainsaw. 

“It’s okay,” Hyungwon says, gripping his own knee with his free hand, trying to get himself to stop shaking. “You got my message?”

“Yeah. I did. Thanks for calling. I haven’t had a lot of time, but I swear I didn’t forget about the pancakes.” There’s a pause and Hyungwon worries their call may have dropped. Maybe Wonho is flying in a tunnel. “This might seem rude, but are you free right now?”

Hyungwon looks at his reflection in the screen of his television. His hair is spiked up from being shoved under a beanie all day, and his face is shiny with sweat. He’s been wearing the same sweatpants and hoodie since last night when he wore them to bed. He smells like the chicken and rice he had for dinner from the Halal cart down the street. 

“Now, huh? Um, can I get five minutes?”

“Sorry, yeah! Of course. Sorry, crap. I knew this would be rude to ask. I just don’t know when I’ll have time again for a little while.”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Hyungwon babbles, rushing to his bathroom to brush wet hands through his hair to get it to settle down. He scrubs furiously at his face with makeup remover wipes and tosses the used sheets into the bin. “You remember where my place is? My roommate is gone, so I can make you pancakes here.”

“Yeah,” Wonho laughs throatily. “I’m, uh, I’m outside your window.”

Hyungwon nearly drops the phone into the sink. He peers out into the family room and sees Monbebe pawing at the window from the sill, meeping and purring like a hysterical madwoman. Behind the glass, Wonho is floating there like it’s nothing. Like he’s a nice boy come to pick Hyungwon up for prom. 

Their eyes meet, and Wonho holds up an awkward pale hand in a wave. Hyungwon drops the chapstick he’d lifted to his lips back beside the sink. Wonho watches him as he walks over to the window and pulls the glass up. The screen is still missing from when Monbebe had jumped out into the tree. 

“You’re a little conspicuous out there, you know,” Hyungwon observes, peering out the window around Wonho to check if any of his neighbors have spotted him hovering beside the building. 

Wonho gestures to the window. “I can come in then?”

“I could just buzz you in downstairs, but you know what? It doesn’t matter.” He backs away from the window and lets Wonho clamber unsteadily over the windowsill and into his apartment. 

Monbebe immediately leaps up and latches into his suit again, climbing him like a tree trunk. Wonho just laughs, sweet like fresh honeycomb, and scratches her behind the ears. 

“I think she fell for you at first sight,” Hyungwon admits, watching Monbebe drop her chin to Wonho’s shoulder like a lover leaning into a loving embrace. “It’s honestly a bit disturbing.” 

Wonho just smiles down at her, eyes somehow bright with affection despite how dark they are. 

“Busy day?” Hyungwon asks, trying to break the silent tension. He needs to keep moving. He’s still shaking. 

Wonho follows Hyungwon over to the little adjoining kitchen that melts into the living room. The space isn’t more than 100 square feet, and Hyungwon feels a tug of shame behind his ribs. He pulls out all the pancake ingredients from the black laminate cabinets above the kitchen sink. He has a big plastic tub of flour, a little ceramic canister of granulated sugar, a little box of baking powder, and a salt shaker. 

“You make pancakes from scratch?” Wonho asks, staring at each ingredient as Hyungwon places them on the counter one by one. 

“The boxed stuff is a ripoff. You can make much better pancakes with ingredients pretty much everyone already keeps in their house,” Hyungwon answers, grabbing a big plastic purple bowl from the cabinet beneath the sink. He considers swapping it out when he sees how Wonho grins at the color, but all his other bowls are dirty, and he doesn’t want Wonho to think he’s a slob. 

“Teach me,” Wonho says, still cradling Monbebe against his chest like a child. He’s standing right behind Hyungwon now, and Hyungwon can feel the presence of his body like a weight against his back. Like Wonho has his own gravitational pull. Maybe Monbebe has fallen into it like a tiny fluffy satellite. 

With quivering hands, Hyungwon measures out the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt into the bowl and whisks the mixture together. If Wonho notices Hyungwon practically vibrating with nerves, he doesn’t react. Just stands there peacefully, observing. 

“And then the wet stuff,” Hyungwon instructs, pouring a cup of milk and a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil into the bowl. 

“Can I mix?”

“Uh, yeah. A’course.” Hyungwon steps back and hands Wonho the whisk. “If it’s too dry, we can add more milk.”

Wonho focuses intently, stirring gently at first, and then whisking much too rapidly, flour going everywhere. The mixture squirts up onto his face and into Monbebe’s fur. Monbebe hisses and drops down to scamper away angrily. Wonho releases the whisk and turns around, looking sheepish and apologetic. 

“I messed up.” He tugs on his earlobe and pouts. 

“That you did.” Hyungwon finds himself laughing, watching the pancake mix dripping down Wonho’s purple bangs and onto his cheeks like milky tears. “Here,” he says, turning Wonho around and placing his hand back onto the whisk and guiding it around the bowl gently. “The key to most cooking or baking is patience. Patience, precision, and love.”

“Sounds like something my mom would say. She never let me in the kitchen.”

Hyungwon is taken aback by that. Wonho has a mother. He always assumed Wonho lived a solitary life on the outskirts of society. Being an alien and all. Er, space immigrant.

“What’s your mom’s cooking like?”

Wonho hums pleasantly. “She’s amazing. She’s Korean, like you, right?”

Another surprise. “Yeah. I’m third generation, though, so I’ve never been there.”

“She’s first generation. Her parents never learned English. She knows how to make the best Korean food, even though she was born here. Her soondae is  _ the best _ ,” Wonho gushes, and Hyungwon hears Wonho’s stomach gurgling in reaction to his own statement. How much food does Wonho need to consume to maintain that gigantic body?

“I make a few good Korean dishes. Uh, this might be a weird question, but are you only half alien? Er, space immigrant? Sorry, I don’t know the proper way to phrase it.”

“No, I’m full alien,” Wonho says, laughing deeply as he taps the excess batter off onto the side of the bowl. 

Hyungwon puts his biggest pan onto the stove and turns on the gas flame. He drops a spoonful of butter into the middle and lets it melt. 

“You look very much--I mean--you look--”

“Korean?” 

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, when I first saw you on the news I thought it was a big hoax that you were an alien. You look just like this kid I knew from church. I thought it was a government conspiracy, and they’d built you in a lab or experimented on you or something.”

Wonho bursts out in bellowing laughter. Hyungwon distracts himself from shame by pouring cups of batter onto the pan. The two blobs sizzle at the edges from the butter, and they fill the room with the scent of pancake immediately. 

“My mom says when I first landed in her yard that I looked different. I looked more alien. I was all purple and bony and she swears I had pointy ears. I think I just adapted to look more like my family. To fit in here. My people must be like that. Adaptive.”

“That makes sense, I guess.” Hyungwon flips the first pancake, and it’s a little overly done. He winces. “The first one is always a tester,” he grits out.

“Sure,” Wonho says, coming to stand closer again, watching. 

“It’s hard with you staring at me.”

“Sorry. I’m just really hungry.”

“I heard your stomach earlier.”

“I have two stomachs, actually.”

“Is that an alien joke or--?”

“No, I actually have two physical stomachs. I got a CT scan when my mom first found me so she could make sure I wasn’t bleeding internally or something, and the doctor was...alarmed.”

“Oh.” Hyungwon scoops the finished pancakes out onto a plate and hands them directly to Wonho. “Just start eating then. I have plenty of batter.”

Wonho pulls the plate to his chest and pinches the top pancake with his fingers. He looks nervous, gaze flickering from the plate over to Hyungwon, like he’s doing something wrong. “You sure?”

Hyungwon pours out two more pancakes. “Yeah. Absolutely. I’d be a shitty host if I let you stand there starving when I had something to feed you.”

“That also sounds like something my mom would say.”

“Your mom would love me then,” Hyungwon replies, before realizing the implication of his words. 

Wonho doesn’t seem to notice, though, and he just nods as he chews. “She would.”

Hyungwon’s stomach acid bubbles up into his throat. “Great.” He flips the second round of pancakes and they turn out perfectly golden brown. He sighs with satisfaction. “How do those taste? These should be better. Less...crispy.”

“These are awesome,” Wonho says, cramming the second one into his mouth in one go and chewing exuberantly. 

“I have syrup too,” Hyungwon remembers, plucking the second round of finished pancakes up and dropping them onto Wonho’s empty plate. He snags the syrup from the refrigerator door and holds it out. “It’s the shitty fake stuff, but I prefer it. The real maple stuff isn’t sweet enough for me.”

“I like sweet things too,” Wonho mutters around a mouthful of pancake. He folds up the top one on his plate like a taco and runs it through a puddle of syrup, letting the syrup slip into the fold before he shoves that into his mouth. 

“Good?” Hyungwon feels pride unfurling in his chest like the bright, warm tendrils of the sun’s rays. 

Wonho just holds a thumb up. 

Hyungwon finishes off the batter, divvying out four more pancakes for Wonho and four for himself. 

“You gonna eat all those?” Wonho asks, nodding at the pile of pancakes on Hyungwon’s plate. 

Hyungwon brings his plate protectively to his chest. “Hell yeah I am. I may look like a human mantis, but I eat like I have two stomachs too.”

“What’s a mantis?” Wonho garbles around his food. 

Hyungwon shoves Wonho over to his couch and drops down beside him. He leaves his plate on the wooden bench serving as his and Hyunwoo’s coffee table and pulls open his laptop. 

“Whoa.” Wonho leans closer to the screen as Hyungwon looks up a video of a praying mantis walking along a tree branch.

“Yeah.” 

“You look really similar to this weird bug. But your head is much rounder.”

“Frog face on a mantis body, eh?” he replies, letting Wonho click random videos on the youtube sidebar as he starts cutting up his pancakes. 

“You look like a model,” Wonho says easily, now watching a video of a praying mantis fighting a snake. 

Hyungwon chokes on his pancake. “Is that a joke?”

“No. Why do you always assume I’m joking? I’m rarely joking. Honesty is my weakness. That’s what Ki says.”

“Who’s Ki?”

“My brother,” Wonho says, before his eyes widen, and he turns to Hyungwon with his bottom lip snagged between his teeth. “Please forget I said that. Or...just don’t tell anyone.”

“You like to keep everything private.”

“I have to,” Wonho reveals, dropping his fork to his plate with a clink and moving his plate to the coffee bench. “For safety.”

“From the press or--”

“I shouldn’t say,” Wonho admits, gripping his thighs and rubbing them anxiously. 

“It’s okay. I won’t tell. You can tell me anything.” The words drip like poison from Hyungwon’s lips.

Wonho smiles gently, eyes that same bright reflective black that they’d been as he smiled down at Monbebe like a loving father. “I appreciate that. Ki would kill me, though.”

“No worries.” 

The quiet stretches out around them, but Hyungwon doesn’t feel as anxious now somehow. He actually feels oddly comfortable with Wonho. Maybe this is Wonho’s gravitational pull again. 

“This is going to seem weird,” Wonho murmurs, staring down at his own hands, “but can I ask you something?”

Hyungwon licks the remnants of syrup from his fork and nods. 

“Do you, uh, would you be my friend?”

Hyungwon blinks slowly, the world fading into nothing around him as the words echo around his skull cavity. “Your friend?”

“Yeah. Would that be okay? If it isn’t, I mean, I’d understand. I’m, ya know, an alien or whatever, and I can’t tell you much about myself for safety reasons, but I--”

“Okay.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be your friend,” Hyungwon chokes out, wrenching the words out from his throat like they’re hooked on a fishing line. 

Wonho beams. His skin starts glowing, a whitish light emanating from his face beneath the mask along with his bare throat and hands. 

“Is that normal?”

“Sorta. I glow sometimes. When I’m sad or, uh, really happy.”

“Hopefully this is a happy glow?”

“Yeah,” Wonho breathes warmly, still smiling at Hyungwon like it’s nothing, “it’s a happy glow.”

Monbebe emerges from Hyungwon’s bedroom, most of the batter licked clean from her fur, except a patch along her spine. 

“Now  _ I _ have a weird question,” Hyungwon says, as Monbebe leaps back up and settles in Wonho’s lap, having forgotten his earlier blunder. 

Wonho hums in reply, petting Monbebe with a light hand as she arches up into his palm.

“Will you help me bathe my cat?”

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

Hyungwon checks the water with the inside of his wrist and finds it an okay temperature. Monbebe hasn’t seemed to realize she’s about to be doused with water as she purrs happily against Wonho’s chest where he’s perched on the edge of Hyungwon’s closed toilet lid. 

“She hasn’t had a bath since she was a kitten and somehow got olive oil all over her tail.”

“She’s going to hate us.”

“This is what a father must deal with for the sake of his child,” Hyungwon sighs, shutting the water off when the tub has filled just a couple inches. “Bring her over.”

“Is she gonna scratch me?”

“Aren’t you a superhero alien?”

“What, so I can’t feel pain?”

“Oh, can you?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Wonho scoffs, squatting beside the tub as he pries Monbebe away from his chest and holds her over the water. 

She comes to, looks down, starts frantically shaking her little orange and white striped legs with her claws extended trying to attack the air itself. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” Hyungwon coos, nodding for Wonho to lower her into the water. She starts paddling, legs cutting through the open air in terror, water splashing everywhere, wetting Hyungwon and Wonho both. 

Wonho holds her steady, and he’s cooing at her gently, calmly, until she eventually settles, resigned. 

Hyungwon cups water in his palms and drops it over her back. Her spine arches angrily, but she doesn’t try to escape. The cat shampoo becomes sudsy between Hyungwon’s hands and he starts to lather it into her matted orange fur. 

“Forgive me, baby. Daddy is sorry,” Hyungwon whines, frantically cupping more water to rinse the shampoo out. She drops her whole body down into the water like a miserable ragdoll to make the misery end quicker. The soap gone, he scoops her from the water and Wonho wraps her in a fluffy gray towel. 

“Daddy, huh?” Wonho laughs.

Hyungwon croaks, “Like--her  _ father _ , obviously.”

“Yes,” Wonho replies, confusion twisting his lips into a strange pout. “I thought that was sweet.”

“Oh,” Hyungwon mumbles awkwardly. “Of course.”

“Why? What did you think I was implying?”

“Nothing. I just misheard, I guess,” Hyungwon blurts, sitting back against the wall and stifling a yawn behind his hand. Wonho rests back against the opposite wall, just watching him as he rubs the moisture from Monbebe with the towel. 

“Humans lie a lot, huh?”

Hyungwon fidgets his fingers in his lap and bites at the inside of his cheek. “It’s self-preservation, mostly.”

“I told my first lie this week,” Wonho admits, releasing Monbebe from the towel when she starts wiggling to escape. She darts out of the bathroom and into Hyungwon’s bedroom, pausing to meow in annoyance over her shoulder in warning to leave her be. 

“Your first lie, huh? How did that feel?”

“Awful. I couldn’t eat the whole day. It felt like being shot.” He scratches at the slight ridges lining his purple lycra suit. “Like being shot all over.”

“Have you? Been shot all over, I mean?”

Wonho nods, pale purple bangs still dripping water into his face. At least the water washed the pancake batter from his hair too.

Hyungwon finds himself scooting closer, grabbing another towel from the rack behind him, and leaning in to drop it over Wonho’s head. Wonho stares at him, unblinking, the towel like a curtain on either side of his soft face. Hyungwon rubs the soft fabric into Wonho’s hair like he’d done for Monbebe, and Wonho’s lips quirk at the corners in amusement. 

“Are you my Daddy too?” 

Hyungwon drops the towel and staggers to his feet unsteadily, heart hammering against his ribcage. “One child is enough, I think,” he cries, squeaky. “I need to sleep.”

Wonho stands, pulling the towel from his head and placing it back neatly onto the towel rack. “Did I mispeak?”

“No, I just realized what time it is, is all,” Hyungwon replies hoarsely. He strides to the window and yanks it open. 

“I’ll take the door this time, I think,” comes Wonho’s calm voice behind Hyungwon’s back.

Hyungwon exhales shakily and nods. “Right. Of course. The door.”

“Thank you for the pancakes. And for saying you’ll be my friend,” Wonho says, with Hyungwon holding open his front door. 

“Happy to. I don’t, uh, have many friends.”

“Me neither.” Wonho tips his head to the side and gives Hyungwon that warm, bright, affectionate smile. His skin starts to radiate white light again. 

For some reason, this makes Hyungwon feel such an intense burst of pride. 

“My roommate,” Hyungwon adds, unsure why he’s speaking again, Wonho clearly ready to leave as he hovers in the doorway, “is usually gone on fridays. At his fiancee’s place.”

Wonho blinks. “Uh huh?”

“I mean, if you--if you want to come by on fridays. I’ll be here. Alone. Er, with Monbebe, obviously. And she misses you when you’re gone.”

“She does?”

“Yeah. She does.”

“Okay.”

“Good. Okay then. Next, um, see you next friday?”

“Can you make me Korean food?” Wonho asks, as Hyungwon is about to shut the door. His eyes are so earnest, so dark but filled with kind heat. Hyungwon can’t say no. 

“Yeah. You save the world all the time. It’s the least I can do, eh?”

“Don’t do it because I’m Wonho. Do it because I’m your friend,” Wonho mutters softly. His cheeks are flushed pale lavender. Hyungwon wants to touch them to see if Wonho’s blood is warm under his fingertips. 

But he doesn’t.

“You got it, friend-o,” is what he says instead. 

Wonho grins and waves. Hyungwon waves back. 

And then he’s gone.

Monbebe peeks her head out from his room, and her expression is both aggravated and deeply concerned. For a cat.

“I know, baby. I know. I’m the worst.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hi again everyone. Sorry I haven't really been on twitter lately. I've been trying to give myself a mental break. But I'm so grateful to everyone who has followed me or messaged me or commented or kudo-ed my fics!! You guys are seriously amazing, and I hope you continue to follow my stories. 
> 
> Also, you might've noticed I added a graphic violence warning to the fic. I realized I couldn't really write the things I wanted without it. Major warnings for this chapter: violence warning and blood warning and some kinda gross body stuff. If you don't like that, I'd skip the second section of this chapter for sure. Proceed with caution if you don't like violence, I guess!

Hoseok wakes up to Kihyun tossing a newspaper down onto his face. 

“Whazzis?” Hoseok snorts, whipping the paper away so he can squint at it by the light of the one open curtain. It can’t be later than 7:30. 

“You’re in the paper again,” Kihyun says, pouring hot water over a pile of instant coffee powder in his mug. The room smells like bitterness and crunchy sugar crystals. 

“Huh?” Hoseok sits up in his little cot and squints closer at the photo of him flying a sunken car from the depths of the Hudson, its gray exterior coated in algae and garbage. 

“You’re lucky you’re an alien. That water kills any living thing that comes in contact with it. It’s pure toxic sludge,” Kihyun says, sipping his too-hot coffee with a little one-eyed wince. 

“Why do we even still get the paper?” Hoseok tosses the post to the end of his bed, and Tripod leaps in through the window and lands right on top. He spins three times in place, little paws crinkling the news print softly, before he drops belly-first and starts purring violently. 

“That’s why,” Kihyun observes, running a tired hand through his hair. “I’d much rather him sit on that waste of trees than on our nice clean sheets.”

“Right. You humans and your germs,” Hoseok says, reaching out to pat Tripod’s frazzled mane. 

“We all have our weaknesses.” Kihyun yawns behind his palm and tries his coffee again. Winces again. 

“Right. Me: nothing. Humans: everything.” 

Kihyun glares over the rim of his mug. It’s the mug their mom sent them to the city with originally. One of those mugs she’d gotten from a church empowerment retreat. It says I’M A STRONG, SENSUAL WOMAN on it. Kihyun refused to use it at first on principle, but they don’t have a dishwasher, so he uses whatever is clean. 

“The more you say you don’t have any weaknesses, the more everyone will try to find them,” Kihyun adds. 

“They’re welcome to try,” Hoseok says, shrugging and leaning over to curl his body around Tripod’s. Tripod peeks an eye open, Hoseok smiles at him, and then he falls back asleep. 

“You’re really not coming home again, are you?” 

“Not you too, Ki,” Hoseok groans, burying his face into Tripod’s fuzzy back fur. “You know this is the most dangerous time to be a New Yorker.”

“You don’t know that. I know you think this city needs you--”

“I don’t  _ think  _ that. They  _ tell  _ me that. Every day, Ki. Every single day. I sleep through the night once, and someone’s daughter is kidnapped, and it’s  _ my fault _ .”

“It isn’t. If our law enforcement can’t solve crimes then--”

“I don’t solve crimes, Ki. I prevent them. It’s different. NYPD comes in and says ‘Okay, so they took your daughter around 12:15 am; now let’s retrace your steps.’ If I had been there, she wouldn’t have been taken at all.”

“They did find her, Hoseok.”

“And now she’ll be traumatized for the rest of her life,” Hoseok spits, and Tripod lifts his head to sniff at the air in annoyance for being awoken. 

“You can’t save everyone,” Kihyun sighs, placing his mug onto the bedside table. “I’m sorry if we ever made you think you need to.”

“I need a reason,” Hoseok mutters, “you know? For being here at all.”

“You just gotta live,” Kihyun says, pulling on a pair of jeans over his Christmas penguin boxer shorts. “Most people don’t have a reason. It isn’t that complicated. No babies ask to be born for a purpose. That would be freaky. You just work with what you have.”

“And what I have are superpowers, so I guess I gotta work with that,” Hoseok replies, rolling onto his back and folding his hands over his chest. 

“You have family too.”

“Yeah,” Hoseok yawns up to the ceiling, and Tripod wakes up a bit to start nibbling at the strands of Hoseok’s purple hair that fan out over his head on the mattress. The urge to tell Kihyun about Hyungwon scratches at Hoseok’s core with sharp little claws, and Hoseok swallows it down. He wants to know it’s okay. He wants Kihyun to tell him he’s allowed to have a friend. He’s allowed this one selfish joy. “Are you leaving today?”

“Yeah. I’m going on a Tinder date first, and then I’m heading out.”

“A  _ date _ ?” Hoseok cries, shooting up onto his elbows to narrow his eyes into suspicious slits. “You? You have a date?”

“I told you about this days ago! You never listen when I talk!”

“Maybe if you were a bit more  _ interesting _ \--”

A pillow flies at his face. He swats it away, and it lands on Tripod. He hisses and darts back out the window. Hoseok glares at Kihyun. Kihyun shrugs. 

“I told you about it, so don’t give me this,” Kihyun scoffs, peering into his tiny desk mirror to put wax into his hair and smooth it into place. He taps his cheeks with cheap dollar store toner and lotion. It makes his narrow face look dewy like those idols on Kihyun’s old childhood posters. 

“My brother is so handsome,” Hoseok coos. 

Kihyun turns around to look for a pillow to throw, but he doesn’t have any more. He raises a fist in Hoseok’s direction. 

“I’m complimenting you, and you’re threatening me,” Hoseok whines. “I can do nothing right in this household.”

“I wouldn’t call this a household,” Kihyun replies, laughing softly and plucking stray cat hair from his maroon sweater. “Do I look okay?”

“Are you really worried? You?”

“Shut up.”

“Seriously, Ki. I can never tell if your self-confidence is all an act or if you genuinely think you’re the hottest thing since Bi Rain.”

“I mean, I’ve never said I’m like  _ Bi Rain _ but--”

“So you  _ wouldn’t _ masturbate to your own poster like you used to with Bi Rain’s?”

“I swear to  _ God _ , Hoseok,” Kihyun shrieks, launching himself on top of Hoseok to start swatting at his skull with little slaps. Hoseok just lifts his arms to block the hits and waits for Kihyun to tire himself out. 

“So who is this guy again?”

Kihyun sits back on his haunches, hands falling to rest atop his own thighs. “Who said it’s a guy?”

Hoseok quirks a pale purple eyebrow. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot you are only 99% homosexual and 1% straight when Mom’s sisters ask about your nonexistent girlfriends.”

“To be fair, I haven’t dated anyone, man or woman, since  _ high school  _ because I’ve been looking out for your dumb ass,” Kihyun says, clambering off the bed to brush more cat hair from his sweater. 

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t come home smelling like cologne and club bathroom quickies,” Hoseok retorts. 

“Fuck, I forgot you have the snout of a damn hound,” Kihyun hisses, rubbing at his temples in frustration. “Whatever. Yeah, it’s a dude. His name is Changkyun. He’s in publishing.”

“Oh, a literary guy, huh?” 

“I guess. He seems cute. He messaged me first. He’s not my normal type, and I don’t think I’m his either, so we’ll see.”

“Must be nice,” Hoseok murmurs, clutching Kihyun’s weaponized pillow to his chest and wrapping his legs around it. 

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Hoseok mutters, rolling over to face the wall. 

“You really aren’t coming home?”

Hoseok groans into the pillow. 

“Fine, fine. I get it. I’ll comfort Mom alone again. She’ll cry into the corn pudding, and I’ll remake a new version without tears in the batter. Our Christmas tradition.”

“Stop guilting me. I’m trying to save the planet.”

“Sorry, sorry. I forgot you’re the only entity capable of protecting the planet that has been just fine for millennia before you ever fell to its surface from God-knows-where.”

“I’m sensing sarcasm there.”

“Shocking.”

“Go on your date, you bitter little weasel.”

“At least remember to find a payphone to call Mom on Christmas morning, okay?”

Hoseok is about to reply that he doesn’t need a payphone. He pinches his lips together and nods. Kihyun grabs his packed backpack from his desk chair and swings the door shut behind him with a wave and a little cry of “I love you, you big dumb oaf! Merry Christmas!”

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

It isn’t quite Christmas yet. It’s the friday before. The one when Hoseok said he’d go to Hyungwon’s apartment. 

It’s that friday. 

But Hoseok is staring down four men with machine guns, clad in all black and Kevlar. There’s a man between them with his coat pulled open, a pipe bomb taped haphazardly around his torso with thick gray lines of duct tape. 

“Hey,” Hoseok says, hands raised. “Let’s chat.”

Two explosions go off simultaneously. One behind the men and one behind Hoseok. The subway tunnel collapses, thick chunks of concrete piling up. They’re trapped. Hoseok is trapped. 

“Is this all for me?” 

One of the men with machine guns lifts a mic to his lips. “Got ‘im, boss.”

“So this is for me,” Hoseok breathes out, a little relieved that their goal is so single-minded and not about destroying the city. “If it doesn’t work, what’s your backup plan? I’ve survived explosions before.” 

A voice comes through the man’s earpiece, booming as if switched onto speakerphone. “Wonho, is it?”

“Uh, yes. To whom am I speaking, sir?” Hoseok calls back, raising his voice awkwardly, unsure if he’ll be heard. 

“An old friend, let’s just say.”

Hoseok’s brows knit together. “I don’t have any friends, sir.”

“Good. And you never will. Listen: I’m going to rend you to pieces. Then I’m going to collect all those pieces and show everyone that I was right about you from the start.” 

“Sounds like you’re really not a fan of mine,” Hoseok says, biting at his cheek and staring down the barrels of the machine guns. Those are really gonna hurt. The last time Hoseok was hit with an AK-47 bullet, it buried itself so deep into his arm that he healed around it before he could manage to dig it out. And fuck that hurt. He could still feel it there under his bicep sometimes. He wonders how many bullets are in those guns. How many bullets he’ll have to pull out of his flesh. Alone, because Kihyun is already gone. 

And this pipe bomb. 

That’s gonna really burn. 

“You know I’m going to walk out of this subway tunnel at the end of the day, sir. None of these things are going to kill me.”

“I don’t know that. Have you ever been shot at with 160 rounds in under a minute? And then exploded?”

“You know, I can’t say I have.”

The nerves are really licking at Hoseok’s insides now. He’s never once been afraid of human weapons. Not really. Maybe in the split second a bullet is speeding right for his forehead. But not like this. Not this genuine fear that he may not actually survive this kind of pain. There has to be a limit, right? Everyone has a limit to the amount of pain they can live through. 

Should Hoseok text Hyungwon to let him know he might not make it? Just that phrasing too: ‘might not make it.’ Vague enough to imply he probably won’t be physically be present while also implying he might be fucking dead. 

Something cracks inside Hoseok as the nerves gnaw at his bones. 

No. 

No, he doesn’t want to die. 

Things are starting to change. Things are starting to get good. Things are starting to feel good. 

He steels himself for a moment before charging forward, feet leaving the ground, and he hurtles right at the machine guns. 

He crashes into two of the men at once with his arms spread wide to knock them down, and the other two start shooting. They clearly don’t know where to fire without hitting their accomplices, their shots unsure and missing him by quite some distance. Hoseok slams one of the men he’d tackled against the concrete ground, and it knocks him out immediately when his skull collides with the hard floor. Hoseok sucks in a quick breath, afraid for a moment that he’s killed him, killed this man, but he feels breath against his palm. Faint. But still there. 

The other man he tackled squirms out from beneath Hoseok’s heavy body and crawls right in the line of fire aimed at Hoseok. He collapses, riddled with bullets. 

Hoseok swiftly picks himself up and barrels over to another one of the men, wrestling the gun from him and bending the barrel easily into a knot before tossing it aside. The man yells and comes at Hoseok with his fists, screaming for the one man still standing to fire. Telling the pipe bomb man to set himself off. 

Hoseok feels the bullets in his back. They pierce his skin with a burning sting, riggling into his muscles like clams burrowing into sand. It isn’t the worst pain he’s ever felt, but it makes it hard to concentrate. Hoseok manages to lift the man coming at him with his fists and throws him against the pile of collapsed concrete. His arm breaks, bone crunching audibly, and he falls to the ground, motionless. 

“Thank you, boss, for this opportunity.”

Hoseok wheels around, staring down the man with the bomb strapped to his chest. He can hear them now, the people on the other side of the fallen concrete, screaming, with police sirens sounding on the street overhead. They’re in Chinatown, and it’s late. It’s later than Hoseok said he would try to get to Hyungwon’s place.

Ugh, priorities, Hoseok. Priorities. 

“You don’t want this,” Hoseok urges, arms outstretched. 

The man shakes his head, eyes lifted to the concrete ceiling. “I do. This is--”

The man is drawing in what he must think is his last inhale when Hoseok flies forward, rips the bomb from the man’s chest, tape and cloth and some body hair included ( _ sorry _ !). Steering himself in mid-air for one of the piles of fallen concrete, he hears the beeping, the crescendoing beeping, and then everything goes quiet. 

And then seconds later: more screaming. 

The man now without the bomb is yelling, but Hoseok knows he’s taken the blast far enough away. The men should only feel a bit of heat. The bomb isn’t large enough to cause that much damage. It is clearly homemade and--

Something makes Hoseok think he was meant to take it. He was expected to grab hold of the bomb to save the man. 

Everything bursts at once. In heat and flying shards of metal and falling rock. 

His body scrapes against the concrete slabs as he’s forced through another wall. Everything rips. Everything tears. There’s the heat of the blast that somehow makes everything a little less bloody and a little more singed. Like cauterizing a wound. Like cauterizing his whole body. 

And then the tunnel collapses again. 

Hoseok feels his body start to react to all the pain, trying to heal itself even beneath all the weight of the falling stone. The bullets try to force themselves from his body like magnets rejecting a similar charge, and it’s like being shot all over again as they move inside him. There’s more screaming. There’s so much screaming.

And with another fallen stone, the screaming stops.

Because it was Hoseok who was screaming.

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

Hoseok comes to in the darkness. He’s buried beneath four large slats of collapsed concrete tunnel piled up like a tent over his body. He extends his legs. Grimaces through the shooting pain as his muscles all protest at once. Uses all the strength he has left to kick at the stones holding him down. 

They shift. Slide away. Crash to the floor. 

Hoseok blearily glances around. He’d been thrown through the wall and onto an abandoned train platform that had been closed off with the concrete when they built the new station. When the rocks fell around him, it must’ve kept the cops from getting to him. 

There’s only silence now. No sirens. No screaming. 

He’s alone. 

He shifts onto his knees and crawls. His knees bleed purple onto the ground as he crawls to the old stairwell that hopefully leads closer to the city surface. 

Each step takes what feels like hours to climb. His palms are raw. His knees are raw. He feels like he’s been flayed bare like a fish one of the nice old Chinese ladies would sell him from a ripe-smelling stall on the streets overhead.

He climbs thirty-two steps on his hands and knees, spreading purple smears of blood everywhere, before he reaches a heavily boarded-up set of metal doors above his head. 

There’s almost nothing left in Hoseok’s body. 

But he’s so late.

He’s so late, and everything is okay now. 

So he shifts onto his ass on the ground and kicks upwards. The doors splinter and crash out onto the street. 

And Hoseok flies. With his whole aching body trying to drag him down, he flies. 

The wind hits him like it’s never hit him before. He has to really focus on staying cognizant, staying in flight. He’s over the Williamsburg bridge before he realizes he’s not headed home.

Because everything was getting good. Everything was starting to feel good. 

And Hoseok is so late. 

He’s at Hyungwon’s window, perched on the same branch that Monbebe had gotten trapped on a few weeks prior. 

He’s surprised to find his cell phone still works even after all that, but he supposes that’s the benefit of having one of those old brick flip phones with no fancy whatsamajigs or glass screens. 

“I’m at your window,” Hoseok pants into the receiver. 

“You’re...quite late,” Hyungwon replies, stifling a yawn. “I was sleeping. Figured you weren’t coming.” Even through the thick tiredness in Hyungwon’s voice, Hoseok can hear the annoyance, the disappointment.

“I’m really sorry, Hyungwon. I’m so sorry. But can I please come in? I...think I might be dying.”

There’s a yelp and a thud from inside the apartment (as if Hyungwon had rolled out of his bed onto the floor) and then Hyungwon is tearing the window up to let Hoseok fall through onto his floor. 

Hoseok groans and shivers through the waves of pain, curling up on Hyungwon’s nice hardwoods.

“I’m tabling the lateness issue for now,” Hyungwon says, sounding hurried and terrified as he rushes around, gathering towels and bandaids and ice packs and a first aid kit. “But only because you’re dying.”

“I appreciate it,” Hoseok croaks as Hyungwon cuts his suit away from his body with a pair of child’s safety scissors. His rapidly clotting blood starts flowing again when the suit is torn away from his skin, opening the wounds again. 

“The explosion,” Hyungwon says, dipping a towel into a bucket of water and patting it against Hoseok’s raw flesh. Hoseok gasps and clutches at Hyungwon’s free hand, fighting through the pain. “I’m sorry. Shit. I’m sorry. You were there, right? The news said there was a--a bomb, and your blood was at the scene, but they couldn’t find you. The--the guy said you contained the explosion. Said you didn’t try to kill any of them. Well, one of ‘em died. But he got shot accidentally. But--oh fuck, Wonho, you have all these bullet holes. I have to...we have to get you to a hospit--”

Hoseok squeezes Hyungwon’s hand and shakes his head. “No. I can’t. I can’t do hospitals. Please. This is the only place I could go. I’ll heal. I’ll heal if I can just...I just need to clean myself up and eat and sleep and everything will be fine.”

“They were trying to kill you, Wonho. They--you--”

“Just. The bullets, Hyungwon. Please. I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

“I make books, Wonho. I don’t do  _ surgery _ .”

“It doesn’t have to be professional. Just get some tweezers. Just...get them out so I can heal.”

“There are like twenty bullets, Wonho. You’ll pass out.”

“No, I won’t. It’s fine. I’ve felt worse.”

Hoseok passes out after the fifth bullet is wriggled free from his back with a pair of metal chopsticks. 

He wakes up in Hyungwon’s bathtub. Hyungwon is slouched against the wall beside the tub, head tipped back against the wallpaper, lips parted on a snore. He’s changed pajamas, his old clothes coated in thick purple blood. 

There isn’t any water in the tub, but all of Hoseok’s clothes are gone. He reaches behind himself, feels at his lower back for the smooth bumps of clean white scar tissue. With a frantic jerk, Hoseok reaches for his own face, feels for the warm leather of his mask. Hyungwon left it in place. Small mercies. 

“Hyungwon,” Hoseok says, tapping Hyungwon’s leg as he leans over the edge of the tub. “Hey.”

Hyungwon’s eyelids flutter open, and he smiles, wonderfully fluffy lips spreading wide. “You’re alive.”

“Yeah. I’m alive.”

“I made ramen,” Hyungwon mutters, lifting a hand from the floor to wave towards the bathroom door. “It’s cold now, but I can throw it in the microwave. All the noodles’ll be swollen.”

“I don’t care. I’ll do it. Just get in bed.” 

“Psh. You just almost blew up. ‘M gonna make you ramen.” Hyungwon falls forward onto his hands and starts crawling to the door. He collapses onto his face.  

Hoseok sweeps behind him and scoops him up bridal-style in his arms. Hyungwon whines and kicks a little, but it’s a weak attempt, and he relaxes against Hoseok’s bare chest after a moment. 

“Thank you,” Hoseok breathes, placing Hyungwon into his bed and tucking the warm cotton duvet around his long, narrow body. There is so much of him and yet not nearly enough of him. “You’re a great friend.”

Hyungwon eyes Hoseok and grins, delirious with sleep. “Your dick isn’t purple.” 

Hoseok glances down at his bare crotch. “No. It isn’t. Why would it be?”

Hyungwon shrugs and pulls his covers up to his chin. “Dunno. Thought it would be funny. My friend and I had a bet. Bout your dick. He thought it would be purple cause’a your hair ‘n stuff.” 

“And you said it wouldn’t be?”

“Your skin is like a vampire. Like a vampire’s skin. ‘S all white. And your lips are pink. They always say a guy’s dick’s the color of his lips. Well, they don’t always say that. But it has been said. I think. I might’ve made that up.” He rubs at his eyes and yawns. “There are clothes for you in the bathroom. They’re my roommate’s because you’re much more his size than mine. Big. You’re both big. Real big.”

“Thanks. And why were you thinking about my dick at all?”

“This whole city thinks about your dick, Wonho. There is a porn parody about you, you know?”

“I...wasn’t aware, no. Ki doesn’t let me use his computer.”

“Probably cause he knows about the porn parody.”

“Is it sexy?”

“Not bad. High production value.” Hyungwon yawns, lips stretching wide and tongue stretching out like a cat’s. 

Monbebe peeks out from under his bed. She sniffs at Hoseok’s ankle and rubs her chin against him. Then she leaps up onto the bed and curls up against Hyungwon’s side. 

“She hid from the blood. She doesn’t like blood.” Hyungwon’s eyelids flutter closed again. 

Hoseok watches him for a minute. He’s so human. Like Kihyun. But unlike Kihyun, Hoseok can never predict what Hyungwon will do, what he’ll say. It’s like learning humanity all over again. “Goodnight, Hyungwon. Thank you for saving me.”

“Guess we’re even now.”

Hoseok hums and pets Monbebe’s head once more before turning to leave Hyungwon’s bedroom. 

He’s in the doorway when Hyungwon mumbles sleepily, “I’m glad you came. Even if you were terribly late. And dying.”

“Me too. I’ll try not to be late or dying again.”

Hoseok changes into Hyungwon’s roommate’s sweats and reheats the bowl of soggy ramen. He gives himself a few minutes to sit in the calm silence of Hyungwon’s apartment and eat, seated on Hyungwon’s little couch. Everything smells like salty ramen and febreeze and the antiseptic cream that Hyungwon must’ve applied to Hoseok’s back when he removed the bullets. Everything smells like Hyungwon and Hoseok. It feels nice. Belonging somewhere. Having somewhere to go. 

Hoseok knows he should leave. He should. It’s almost Christmas, and Hyungwon probably has plans. 

But Hoseok doesn’t leave. He falls asleep on Hyungwon’s couch, arms pillowed beneath his head, empty ramen bowl beside the couch on the floor. 

And Hoseok revels in the way his scent rubs off on the cushions, the way the sun rises behind the window that isn’t his but feels like it could be. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: sorry for slacking on my updates lately, folks. I got a new job, and everything has been kinda nuts. Hopefully I'll get back into my schedule again soon! Please enjoy the update and comment and kudo as you see fit! I love you!

_ Hyungwon sees purple.  _

_ So much purple. _

_ On his hands, his fingers, dripping thick as sticky sweet jam to the asphalt beneath his sneakers.  _

_ There’s screaming. It’s low but tight, throaty, nasal--familiar.  _

_ It’s Wonho. _

_ His arms and legs are coiled in gold chains, as huge as the ones that latch giant ships to the pier at the Chelsea harbor. He’s hanging upside-down from a construction crane, just bleeding. Bleeding and screaming.  _

_ There’s a helicopter circling, and Hyungwon thinks finally,  _ finally _ someone is coming to help, someone is coming to save him. _

_ Bullets.  _

_ Round after round fired from the heavy artillery guns held out the sides of the military helicopter punch into Wonho’s abdomen. Into his legs and arms and Hyungwon has to look away when Wonho’s face-- _

_ His face. _

_ His wide eyes with irises that seem backlit in certain lighting (like those tracing tables they had at his elementary school). His soft cheeks and contrasting sharp jawline. His precious, softly-curved nose that turns pale lilac when he’s embarrassed. His ears like delicate ceramic that warped in the kiln and wrinkled and curled just ever so slightly. His lips-- _

_ Wonho lifts a hand, stretches it out to where Hyungwon is standing on the street below him. _

Please _ , he mouths. Or maybe he screams. Hyungwon can’t hear anything over the blood thrashing around in his skull.  _

Hyungwon. Hyungwon--

_ Something quakes _ .  _ The ground splits between Hyungwon’s legs _ .  _ Everything is shaking. _

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

“Hyungwon.”

There’s a hand on Hyungwon’s arm. 

He bolts upright, duvet pooling in his lap where it had been tucked up under his chin as he slept. “Wonho.”

Wonho peers down at him from the side of his bed, lips curved sweetly, and he’s fine. He’s--there’s no blood. There’s nothing. The ground is solid beneath them. 

“Sorry I fell asleep last night. I was gonna head out now though. Figured I’d stop in and say goodbye first. And thanks. Again. For saving my ass.”

Hyungwon swings his legs over the side of the bed and rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms. “Right. Wait, fuck, today is Saturday, right? It’s Christmas Eve.”

Wonho scratches at the short hair on the nape of his neck. “Is it?”

“Do you, uh, do you have plans?” 

Wonho looks down at his bare feet, wiggles his big toes as he watches, and shrugs. “Not really anything I’d call  _ plans _ per se. I was gonna do some city surveillance for a bit. Christmas is when all the crazies come out.”

“It’s New York. Is there ever a time without crazies?” 

Wonho laughs, a bright and warm and  _ alive _ sound. “You know what I mean. Not the cardboard-box-over-your-head-in-Times-Square crazies. The set-the-Rockefeller-Christmas-Tree-aflame crazies.”

“We’ve all thought about torching that fucking tree,” Hyungwon declares. “When you’re trying to walk to work and there are gaggles of lost tourists pretending the city is fucking Disney World and not a place where people live and make a living, and they’re all mooning over that fucking hideous tree…” Hyungwon motions an explosion with his hands, complete with a little under-his-breath sound effects (bbbhoooowwwwhhhhhhh).

“I love that tree. And I love those tourists.”

“Right, I forgot you’re an angel or whatever.”

“Alien.”

“Right. Close enough. You came from the great beyond,” Hyungwon replies, gesturing up at his ceiling with a flourish. “Anyhow, how are your bullet holes?”

Wonho turns and lifts the bottom of Hyunwoo’s sweatshirt. There are faint raised white scars over his tailbone. He’s smiling though. “Much better. I don’t feel ‘em at all today. I don’t know what you do for a living, but you should think about changing professions. Operation must’ve been your favorite game as a child.”

“Turns out pure unbridled terror can really help sharpen your focus,” Hyungwon admits. “Do you think they’d let me bypass the medical degree if I say I dug bullets out of Friendly Neighborhood Superhero Wonho with a pair of old chopsticks? Good thing I assume you’re impervious to human disease because I’m pretty sure those were used and most fucking certainly not sterilized.”

Wonho laughs again, and Hyungwon wonders if his laughter is another power. If, in an instance of intense negotiation with local terrorist organizations, Wonho could just laugh and free the terrorists from their murderous urges. 

God. Stop being so swoony, Hyungwon. You and the rest of this goddamn hellscape of a city.

“I should head out,” Wonho says again. “Surveillance.”

“Right, you said. But, you, ah, should come back. After. It’s Christmas Eve. You said Ki, er, your brother is gone, right? While you were dying. Don’t spend Christmas alone.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you just asking me because you don’t want to spend Christmas alone too?”

Hyungwon considers it. Licks his chapped lips. Spreads his arms out in a gesture of clearly-forced apathy. “No one wants to be lonely on Christmas.” There’s a short pause, filled only with the sound of Hyungwon’s old radiator pumping steam and heat into the room. “So let’s be lonely together.”

“Yeah I’ll think about it.”

Hyungwon doesn’t believe in Christmas trees. 

He especially doesn’t believe in being one of those assholes standing on 23rd Street in the middle of the damn sidewalk, appraising a bunch of decrepit, probably-lab-constructed pine trees up for sale from a street peddler. 

It’s Christmas Eve day, and Hyungwon doesn’t believe in Christmas trees. They’re messy and Monbebe eats all the pine needles until her poop looks like it could be sold on 23rd Street by a christmas tree peddler. 

Hyungwon grew up in Flushing, in an apartment so small that getting a Christmas tree would mean abandoning one of his pets or family members for the sake of making space. His mom would put candles in the windows and that was about as festive as they got. 

They were in the projects. They were just happy that the monthly rat exterminator remembered to come in December so the rat that lived in the cupboard above the refrigerator wouldn’t eat through their sacks of rice. That was Christmas. 

But now Hyungwon is lugging a janky little pine tree down 23rd Street towards the subway tunnel. Needles and branches keep snapping off as he drags it against the concrete and down the narrow subway staircase. A few girls giggle at him as he struggles to wedge the tree through the metro turnstile in front of him after he swipes his card. 

There are pine needles in his sweater. There are pine needles stuck to the bottoms of his boots. There are probably pine needles woven into his very DNA. 

Hyungwon stands with the little nearly-naked tree in the subway car. A little girl wriggles in her mom’s arms and whines, with chubby pale arms outstretched towards Hyungwon’s tree. 

“Krees-us,” she burbles, stubby pink fingers clenching in the air. 

Hyungwon kicks a fallen pine needle in her direction.

She blinks. 

And cries.

The rest of the passengers turn up the music in their headphones. 

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

There aren’t many needles left on the tree by the time Hyungwon carts it up to his apartment and gets it through the door.

Monbebe immediately hisses at it as Hyungwon lays out a towel by the television set to sit it on top of. 

“Hey,” Hyungwon coos, dropping into a squat to scratch at her little head. “I know it’s weird. But it’s for Wonho, okay? You love Wonho, right? He might come over tonight, and he’ll want a tree. He likes dumb shit like trees.”

Monbebe looks skeptical for a moment, but as the word ‘Wonho’ registers in her teeny brain, she perks up. She spins around the infernal tree, scent-marking it by rubbing the underside of her chin along the bark of the trunk, before dropping down beneath it on the towel to sleep, prim little paws tucked under her chin. 

An hour passes, and Hyungwon has chopped up a few old copies of  _ The New Yorker _ to make origami stars, which he strings together with Hyunwoo’s emergency sewing-kit thread and winds around the tree. It’s not colorful or bright, but it looks better than a bare, barely-needled pine tree. Monbebe swats at one of the hanging origami stars for a split second and then gets bored. 

Hyungwon tops the tree with a large origami star and calls it a day. 

It’s 4 pm now. 

Wonho probably won’t even come.

He said he had to survey the city. Someone is probably trying to blow up Times Square like always. 

But Hyungwon pulls out his big red stock pot. He pulls out his soft tofu, zucchini, the nice kimchi his mom brought him at Thanksgiving that she got from a nice old lady at her church, eggs, onions, gochujang, soy sauce, olive oil, green onions. He doesn’t have a lot. Wasn’t prepared for guests. Wasn’t prepared for Christmas guests. 

Guest.

Who might not even come.

Hyungwon has the lid on the gently bubbling soondubu, the rice cooker puffing warm steam through its tiny vent, and a saucepot of wine with apple cider, orange slices, and spices simmering when he realizes he has three missed calls. 

For a second his heart squeezes tight with nerves. Wonho wouldn’t be calling to say he’s been injured again, right? He could just fly here. He would just fly here.

It’s Minhyuk.

Hyungwon doesn’t particularly feel like engaging with this specific brand of manic pixie chihuahua, but work is work. 

“Wonnie!” Minhyuk cries through the phone. There’s the soft din of clattering glasses and slurred speech through the receiver behind Minhyuk’s voice. “I’m at  _ Tir Na Nog _ ! I’m here with Jooheonie! Right, Honey? Honey Bee? He’s such a little honey bee, Hyungwon! Anyhow, you should come. We need to talk craft. Talk work craft. Talk craft beer. Crafty things.”

“It’s only 5 pm, and you’re toasted.”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Minhyuk wails, his accent slipping through as it does when he’s drunk. “Do you have plans or something? A  _ date _ ?”

Hyungwon sighs and rubs the furrowed triangle of skin between his eyebrows. “No. It’s just 14 degrees outside, and I’d rather drink a box of Trader Joe’s Merlot in my apartment than go into the city to drink with you.”

“Harsh, Wonnie. So you haven’t heard from dreamboy lately?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Minhyuk crows triumphantly. “Hear that, Honey Bee? My client knows  _ Wonho _ . He knows Won--”

“Minhyuk,” Hyungwon hisses. “Discretion. Please. I didn’t make you sign a NDA this time, but you can’t just--”

“All right, all right,” Minhyuk huffs, pausing to swallow down more whatever-it-is-he’s-drinking. “Is he there? Is that why you’re whispering? Scared he’s gonna find out about the book?”

“No, he’s not here. I’m alone. I’m gonna watch a nice Netflix Yule Log and edit a manuscript about who  _ really _ killed JFK.”

“Sounds thrilling. If you end up on Tinder at 3 am this year (like last year), don’t come crawling to me saying ‘oh, Minnie, I should have come out drinking with you; I’m such a loser.’”

“I guarantee you will never hear me utter those words. Never,” Hyungwon replies, stirring the mulled wine with a mesh skimmer spoon and pulling the sticks of cinnamon, whole cloves, and anise seed out to toss away into the kitchen trash bin under the sink. “I’ll text you about meeting up later this week, okay? If you end up sleeping with my favorite bartender tonight, I expect details.”

“Hear that, Honey Bee? Hyungwon wants me to find out how big your dick is.”

Loudly, Hyungwon bellows into the receiver: “DON’T LISTEN TO HIM, JOOHEON. I SAID NO SUCH THING.”

Minhyuk giggles like a velvet pouch of little cat-collar bells. “He’s blushing so much, Wonnie. It’s so cute. It’s so--hey, Honey Bee, how big  _ is  _ your dick?”

“I’m hanging up,” Hyungwon sighs, ladeling himself a mug of mulled wine. “Merry Christmas, Minnie. Tell Jooheon Merry Christmas.”

Hyungwon blows at the steam rising off the top of his mug and listens to the cooing that ensues when Minhyuk thinks Hyungwon has already hung up. Drunkenly still on the line, probably leaning as far over the bar as he can to bare his sweet, sharp, pale collarbones to Jooheon across the polished wood bar top. Cooing “Joohoney Bee, don’t worry. I won’t tell. ‘S our secret. Hey, did you have Christmas plans after this?” 

Hyungwon finally hangs up once he’s sat down on his little loveseat with his laptop. His television is now playing the standard Netflix Christmas Yule Log. The fire crackles through the tinny speakers. 

Monbebe scampers out from where she’d been sitting in the bathtub and leaps up to lay her chin on Hyungwon’s knee as he works. He lifts a hand to scratch between her ears for a moment before trying to focus back on work.

Making books has always been Hyungwon’s dream. It’s the kind of dream that for most people starts as another dream.  _ I wanna be a writer _ ,  _ but since that isn’t a  _ real job _ , I guess I’ll just work with books.  _ But Hyungwon has always been more business oriented. He wanted to know how art became a commodity. And not to bash the idea. Not at all. He wanted to know how to influence public opinion, make a profit, and still somehow have your product called art. 

He’s cynical that way. 

The thing about this Wonho book is that the familiar, calm distance between Hyungwon and the books he publishes will be gone. It’ll be more than gone. He will have purposefully wrecked it.

But the sales.

And the prestige.

And the promotion.

On the one hand, it’s like: fuck Wonho, right? Hyungwon doesn’t  _ really _ know him. And these books about him are gonna be written whether he likes it or not. At least Hyungwon’s will be mostly positive. Hyungwon’s published books about Oprah, about the Clintons, about Leonardo DiCaprio. No famous figure, no matter how well-loved, is safe from publishing. Is safe from conspiracy. Is safe from public ridicule.

But Hyungwon has never met Oprah. Despite spending his childhood watching her show everyday at 4 pm with his mother after  _ General Hospital _ finished airing, Hyungwon has no real emotional or personal connection to Oprah. So if he finds an author who says  _ Yeah, I’ve got this theory about Oprah that’ll make you rich _ , then who is Hyungwon to be like  _ nah, that seems mean _ . 

Monbebe lifts her head suddenly and whips it in the direction of the window. 

Hyungwon’s heart croaks, inflating and pulsing like the underside of a frog’s throat. 

Fuck, isn’t that a mating call thing? New metaphor.

Wonho stands at the window, strong pale fist tapping lightly against the glass. His breath isn’t even visible, despite how frigid it is outside. His uniform is a bit tattered, but he looks okay. They make eye contact through the glass, and Wonho smiles.

Monbebe darts off the bed to paw at the windowsill, yowling and meeping and scratching at the paint. 

“Security deposit, you thirsty brat,” Hyungwon says, nudging Monbebe aside with his slippered foot. Monbebe peeps grumpily and trudges back over to the couch. 

Wonho climbs through the open window and shucks his sneakers off by the wall. 

“Thanks for--”

“What happened to your uniform? Costume? Thing?”

Wonho peers down at the rip across his stomach, the fabric threads hanging down over the pale peek of his abs. Hyungwon saw them before in person, when he’d had to strip Wonho down after being shot and blown up, but something about the tease of skin really stirs at his core. 

“I got caught on a branch.”

Hyungwon presses his lips tightly together. “You. You, what?”

Wonho fingers the hole in the lycra. “It’s sometimes hard to steer when I’m tired.”

Hyungwon nods, trying to visualize Wonho fumbling through the air and slicing through trees. “You’re...kind of a mess, aren’t you?”

Wonho flickers his gaze over to the kitchen. “Is that for me? The food?”

Hyungwon nervously peers over at the massive pots simmering on his little stove. “For me. For...whoever happened to come by.”

“You invited people,” Wonho says, and it’s mostly a question. 

“I didn’t...not...invite people. Like you. See, and here you are. And now you can eat. And if anyone else happens to come by, you know, if they want to, there is food here. For everyone. You and me and everyone.”

Wonho walks over to the stove and plucks the lid off the soondubu. The steam billows up into the ventilating fan, but Wonho sticks his face right over it. That steam would’ve burnt the hell outta any human skin, but Wonho just breathes the scent in deep with a satisfied hum.

“Holy shit,” he says, closing the lid again and peering into the rice cooker instead. “Hooooly shit. Please. Oh, hell, where are your bowls? God, Hyungwon, I’m so hungry.”

Hyungwon pulls open the cabinet above the sink and draws out one large glass salad bowl and one regular human-sized dinner bowl. He grabs a giant serving salad spoon and a regular human-sized spoon. Wonho watches eagerly as Hyungwon fills the salad bowl with rice piled high and soondubu ladeled over top, steaming and flagrantly spicy and hot. 

“Marry me,” Wonho coos, eyes cast down at the bowl, cheekbones flushed pale purple with adoration. 

Hyungwon barks a laugh, rough and haggard. “I know it's  _ legal now and all  _ but--”

Wonho looks up from his soondubu. “It's legal for humans to marry food?”

“What?”

“What?”

“I asked the food to marry me, and you said it's legal now,” Wonho replies, blinking slowly in confusion. Hyungwon wonders if he even needs to blink naturally or if he adopted the habit after living among humans. Do alien eyes get dry too? NYC winters are particularly harsh on the eyeballs.

“Oh,” Hyungwon says, realization washing over him, cold and shameful. “No. I thought, uh, never mind. Do you drink? There's wine.”

“Like liquor? Kihyun’s never let me drink before. He's scared of how I'll be. How my body’ll react or whatever.” 

Hyungwon ladles a mug of mulled wine for him and holds it out. “I won't tell.”

Wonho stares at the mug for a long while before snatching at the ceramic handle and striding to the couch. “Right. I'm an adult. I'm a grownup. I can drink if I want to.”

“Most adults don't need to assure themselves they're ‘grownups.’”

Wonho sets his bowl in his lap on the couch and nervously sips at his wine. His eyelids flutter delicately and he sighs. “Wow. That's. Something.”

“Good? It's a recipe Changkyun gave me a few Christmases ago at our work party.”

Wonho chugs the rest of the mug’s contents swiftly and holds the empty cup out for more. “What is it you do again?”

Hyungwon grabs for the mug and runs back to the stove to get more. “So, yeah, it's his mom’s recipe or something.” 

“Who?”

“Changkyun.”

“From your work. Which is  _ where _ ?”

“Why are we interrogating me on Christmas.”

“Oh, right. Christmas. I got you something,” Wonho murmurs, reaching into his suit’s hidden side pockets and retrieving a little cellophane-wrapped set of wooden chopsticks. “Since I made you wreck your last pair. You know, with my blood. Again, if that isn't your normal profession, I really think the medical industry needs you. You have very deft fingers.”

“Right,” Hyungwon says, looking down at the little plastic pouch of chopsticks. They're beautiful, made of carved bamboo, with little cat figures perched on the top ends. “This is, uh--but I didn’t get you anything.”

“You saved my life.”

“I fished bullets out of your ass with used eating utensils.”

“And I really appreciate that. I’ve never had a friend before, but I think that’s above and beyond normal friend expectations.”

“You’re Wonho. You’re the city icon. I couldn’t just let you--I wouldn’t--you’re  _ so much _ \--you’re just--”

Wonho tugs Hyungwon’s wrist, maneuvering him down onto the sofa beside him. Hyungwon hovers there next to him before Wonho laughs like warm honey and pulls him to his chest. Hyungwon puts his hands up, like a damsel about to swoon, palms pressed to Wonho’s collarbones. His face falls forward against the crook of Wonho’s throat. He smells sweet like fresh sap from a tapped tree trunk. Like slow-melting sugar and butter becoming caramel. But earthier. Or...wherever he’s from. Like when bees find the pollen of unusual flowers and trees and the honey comes out deep amber and raw and strangely grassy.

Hyungwon wraps his fingers over Wonho’s shoulders and holds on. Wonho’s breath smells like mulled wine, and his body thrums with heat. 

“Is this why your brother told you not to drink?”

“I only had one mug. We’re hugging. It’s fine. Chill out.”

“You’re breathing on my throat. It’s moist.”

“Ugh, humans and that word.”

Wonho’s hands skim the length of Hyungwon’s back, trying to find and map out the start and end of his massive torso. 

“You smell good,” Wonho says.

“No, you.”

“Like jasmine. Like my mom’s tea.”

“My, uh, face wash, maybe.”

“Liquor is strange. Is this how it always is?”

“I dunno. It’s different for everyone. Um, should we--”

Wonho pulls back with hands on Hyungwon’s waist. “I feel hot. My tummy is full of stars.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“Where? My tummy?”

“No, you ass. The stars.”

Wonho snorts and shakes his head. “I’m scared of heights.”

“You,” Hyungwon repeats, deadpan. “Fly everywhere. And are afraid of heights.”

Wonho has this goofy drunk smile playing at the corners of his lips, which are stained red from the wine. It’s oddly captivating. Hyungwon tries not to think about how he hasn’t gotten laid or even kissed in months. Wonho wants his friendship. He’s a lonely space alien. Is Hyungwon drunk too? He only had two mugs of wine. How much bourbon did he put in there? “Some people are scared of cars but still drive. It’s just how I get around easiest. But I don’t like it.”

“Right.”

Wonho slides his tongue over his lips slowly, tasting the remnants of wine on his skin. “I like drinking. Can we drink more? Please don’t tell my brother.”

Hyungwon decides to throw caution to the wind. “Have you ever played flip cup?”

 

Wonho is surprisingly terrible at flip cup. Maybe it’s because his coordination is utterly horrific when he’s been drinking. Or maybe he never had good coordination to begin with. Regardless, Wonho fucking sucks at flip cup.

“Are you sure you aren’t  _ trying  _ to lose so you have to drink more?”

“I have a whole galaxy in my stomach. This is so fun,” Wonho crows triumphantly, even as his cup dances along the edge of the table before ultimately toppling onto the floor. 

Hyungwon watches as he excitedly brings a shot glass of mulled wine to his lips and throws it back. 

“Maybe we should play something else,” Hyungwon suggests, sliding the pitcher of wine off his coffee table and onto the little table beside the couch on his side. 

“Like what?” Wonho asks, climbing over Hyungwon to try to grab for the wine. His thighs are thick as they bracket Hyungwon’s, his movements unsteady and sluggish. 

“Maybe a game called sleep. It’s already eleven.”

“No that’s lame. I’m free for the night, and it’s just me and my new best friend, Hyungwon. Let’s do as the human kids do. Let’s party. Let’s, ahhhh,” Wonho’s speech starts to slur. 

“Let’s play Truth or Drink,” Hyungwon suggests, a cruel desire bubbling up in his gut. “I’ll ask you a question, and you have to either give the complete truth or drink.”

“What if I--”

“You can’t just drink. It’s a game. You want to win.”

“And I win by...telling the truth?” Wonho’s face is flushed and exuberantly joyful, almost comically so. 

“Yeah. I’ll start. Truth or Drink: have you really never had a friend before?”

Wonho throws his hands up at the ceiling. “I never lie! There’s no reason to! I’ve never had a--a fuckin--a friend before! Never ever! Kihyun says it’s dangerous to let people in. It’s a weakness. It’s, uh, uh...what’d’they call it?” He scrubs at his face with his palms. “No, I said it already. It’s a weakness. And I can’t have those.”

Hyungwon knows he should stop. 

“You have other weaknesses?” 

Wonho rubs at his nose with his sleeve and shakes his head, his soft purple fringe falling into his face. “Not really. I’m not sure. Not that I’ve noticed. I mean, shit hurts ‘n all. I’ve got pain receptors. Just much higher pain tolerance, and my skin is harder to break. I heal a whole hellova lot faster than humans.”

“So just the heights thing, huh?”

Wonho shrugs and reaches for his shot glass. 

Hyungwon swats at his hand. “That’s for when you  _ lose _ .”

Wonho whines. “Do I get to ask one now?”

Hyungwon spreads his arms out wide. “Hit me.”

Wonho pops his lips. Playful. Obscene. There’s a slickness over the red sheen on his puffy bottom lip now. He points a finger at Hyungwon, depth perception clearly suffering, and ends up actually poking him in the chin. His finger is burning hot even though Hyungwon only feels it for a split second before Wonho pulls his hand away. “Truth or Drink: you think I’m a freak, right? Like everyone else?” 

Hyungwon’s lips part. He gapes for a few seconds of silence (save for the ever-continuing crackle of the Yule Log in the background). “What?”

Wonho touches his fingertip to his own tongue, as if shocked he has such a thing in his mouth and needs to use it to speak. “You. Think. I’m.” He jabs his thumb into his own chest, between his clavicles. “A freak. Right? Cause alien? Cause I’m. I’m an alien?”

Hyungwon ponders that a moment. Does he think Wonho is a freak?

Maybe.

But only because: “You’re a _freak_ because you came to me while you were _dying_ and I’m _not_ a medical professional. You’re a _freak_ because you eat four servings of rice in _one_ _sitting_. You’re a freak because you are terrified of _heights_ and yet _fly_ in the _literal fucking sky_ everywhere. You’re a _freak_ because you’re _not even from here_ and you act like you owe it to this gross goddamn city to save everyone and everything in it. And no one in this godforsaken pit of despair _deserves_ you. _That’s_ why you’re a freak.”

Wonho swallows thickly, and Hyungwon watches his throat move. “So I am. I’m a freak.”

“Yeah. But whatever! Everyone in this hellscape is a freak. Have you ever been to Williamsburg? It’s a circus. Horrific. Truly. People wear berets. And think it’s normal. You fit right in here. It’s a wasteland of freaks.”

“I fit in,” Wonho repeats slowly. 

Hyungwon shrugs. “I mean, yeah. That’s why I like having you around.”

Wonho stares down at his pale hands, tinged with purple at the tips (poor circulation?). “I’m scared that one day people are going to realize I’m some kind of monster. I’m scared that they’ll turn on me if I don’t keep going. If I don’t keep saving them.”

Hyungwon thinks they should return to the game. He eyes his drink. He wants to drink. “They might,” he admits, thinking of his own company, his own book project.

“I don’t want anyone to be frightened of me. I have this dream where I’m rescuing a little girl from a burning apartment somewhere. I’ve got her in my arms, and she looks at me, really looks at me, and she has this dark, wary, terrible  _ fear _ in her eyes. Like I’m worse than the fire. I’m the worse option. Burn to death? Fine. Touch a...fuckin….demon alien or whatever? It’s-- Do you know what that’s like?”

Hyungwon shakes his head. “I’m much more used to being invisible. Or teased. Kids used to call me Noodle. Because of my spaghetti limbs... Which, in hindsight, is really not bad at all. I’m sorry. You’re talking about something really severe.”

“Noodle, huh?”

Hyungwon looks up from his lap, and Wonho’s lips are curved, amused. 

“Noodle is cute. Can I call you noodle?”

Hyungwon swats his hand at Wonho’s thigh. It feels like slapping a cement wall. It stings his palm. “No fuckin way, alien scum.”

Wonho’s smile flickers for a moment. And then returns, brighter. He leaps at Hyungwon and pins him to the couch cushions like a proud little lion cub. Hovering there over Hyungwon, his breath ghosts hot and smelling of spicy red pepper and wine. It smells like his childhood home. Like something warm and familiar but altogether special. 

“You’re lucky you’re my friend.”

“You mean  _ you’re  _ lucky  _ I’m _ your friend,” Hyungwon counters, chest arching up as he tries to break free from Wonho’s hold. It’s like being chained to the ground with Wonho’s hands around his wrists.

“Truth or Drink?”

“You just went,” Hyungwon replies, shaking his head against the cushion. “That’s not how this works.”

“You’re in no position to argue. Truth or Drink?”

“Fine, Jesus. Truth. What’ll you have? More embarrassing stories?”

“What’s kissing like?”

Hyungwon stops struggling. He looks up under the thin strands of his bangs hanging in his eyes. “In what way?”

“I’ve only ever seen it in movies where it’s all angles and music. On the street sometimes I see it for real but... What’s it like? Is it weird? Mouths are for eating. For breathing. It seems like it would make it hard to breathe, right? Do you taste each other’s food?”

“Do you even need to breathe?”

Wonho’s eyes are bright and sincere. “Hyungwon, please. Tell me.”

“I dunno. It’s pretty weird, yeah. Like, uh, like soft and kinda wet but you forget all about that in the moment. You get caught up in it. In the way your stomach kinda swoops down into the center of the Earth and, and your muscles become all loose and it’s like, um, like everything is so much and yet not enough at all, all at once.”

Wonho peers down at him, backlit by the recessed bulbs on Hyungwon’s ceiling, the lighting yellow-tinted and artificial. “Who do you do it with?”

“Me? I mean no one recently. But I used to have this friend for a while. We’d do it from time to time when we were bored or just felt like it. Which sounds kinda tragic. But it was nice. We could be platonic or fool around or whatever. I dated a few people on and off, but nothing serious.”

“A friend?”

Hyungwon’s mouth feels like sandpaper and sawdust fucked and laid dry, crumbly eggs on his tongue. “Yeah. Sometimes, uh, friends do that.”

“Kiss, you mean.”

“Or whatever.” Hyungwon doesn’t remember how many drinks he’s had. Everything is pressing in against his skin, like burning invisible palms squishing his cheeks in, but there’s nothing there. 

“Do you still have that friend?”

Hyungwon shakes his head against the cushions, hair fanning out from his face. 

“Why?” Wonho’s voice is deep and rough and maybe even shaking a little.

“Shit happens,” Hyungwon replies, stomach really swooping low into the center of the Earth and boiling from the inside out. 

“And she was your friend?”

“I didn’t say she.”

Wonho leans in.

Hyungwon feels himself pressing up, drawn magnetically to whatever lives in Wonho’s blood that makes him who he is. “Wonho--”

“Hoseok.”

Hyungwon’s heart batters against his ribcage as if kicked by a large foot. “What?”

“My real name. It’s Hoseok.”

“Your...real name. Is Hoseok.”

“God, I must be out of my mind,” Wonho/Hoseok says. “Kihyun is gonna kill me.”

“I won’t tell.”

“I know you won’t.”

Wonho leans in again, but this time he’s Hoseok, and this time Hyungwon doesn’t know what he wants or what is real. It all makes sense now somehow. Hoseok. His ears like warped ceramic cups. His voice like slowed-down sped-up music. His never-ending bouts of kindness.

There’s wine-scented breath on Hyungwon’s cheek, his cupid’s bow, his nose.

And then there’s a loud  _ crash _ from the corner of the room behind the couch.

Hoseok breaks away from Hyungwon in a split second, standing upright and turned toward the sound like he’s ready to go to war. 

It’s just Monbebe, standing like a meerkat, sheepish, in front of the fallen Christmas tree, paw still raised from when she’d obviously pushed it down. 

Traitor.

Hyungwon falls back against the couch and sighs, eyes shut tight as his heart calms. 

“Hyungwon?”

He peeks his eyes open briefly. 

“Merry Christmas,” Hoseok says, Monbebe smug and in his lap now, purring contently. 

“Merry Christmas,” Hyungwon answers back, tongue heavy in his mouth. “Hoseok.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: I'm gonna be real with y'all i cranked this 6.5K out today and I haven't edited it, so please forgive any errors. I wanted to get it out because I've been so busy lately, and I don't want anyone to think I've abandoned this story. I really do love it. Just.............couldn't edit it. Anyhow, have some angst.

“The way you’re grinning right now is really freaking me out,” Hyungwon grumbles, early Friday morning, pulling off his heavy wool coat and draping it over the back of his desk chair. 

Changkyun leans back in his own desk chair and attempts to prop his feet up in his cubicle. His chair slips out from beneath him, and he drops, ass-down, straight to the floor. He rolls over into a seductive pose, rubs his palm over his probably-bruised buttcheek, and continues grinning as if nothing had happened. 

“Your friend, the ever-single, ever-skanky Changkyun Lim has a boyfriend,” he announces, twiddling his legs behind him as he lays on their dusty wood floor. 

“You  _ what _ ?” Hyungwon croaks, pausing with his hands over his keyboard, craning his head back. 

Changkyun smirks, pulling himself back up into his desk chair and wheeling in closer to Hyungwon. “I’ve been tamed, Hyungwon.”

Hyungwon groans, reaching for his empty coffee cup and wishing he’d gotten a Trenti instead of a Venti. “I don’t wanna know. Just tell me he isn’t in any kind of cult or gang.”

“Not that I know of.”

“Does he have odd shrines in his apartment? Weird, mysterious tattoos?”

Changkyun tips his head to the side. “No tattoos that I’ve seen, but we did have the lights off... And I’ve never been to his apartment. He says it’s too messy, and he doesn’t want me to see it.”

Hyungwon’s brows pull together. “Wait, is this the guy you went on a date with before Christmas?”

Changkyun taps his finger against his lips. “We started talking a couple months back on Tinder, but he didn’t have any time to get together until recently.”

“So you’ve been on one date,” Hyungwon observes. “And now you’re his boyfriend.”

Changkyun waves his little tan hand through the air between their bodies. “You know how these things are, Wormy. Can’t fight true love.”

“Does  _ he  _ know you’re boyfriends now?”

Changkyun blinks slowly. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I  _ mean _ , did you declare that you are officially boyfriends  _ to him, _ or have you just decided it in that crazy delusional brain of yours,” Hyungwon says, rapping his fingers on his desk. 

“He seems the boyfriend type,” Changkyun replies, walking his chair back to his cubicle. “Is all.”

“So that’s a no, huh?”

“Why do you always feel the need to crush my dreams, Hyungwon? Are you just bitter that you haven’t gotten laid since college?” Changkyun hisses--a little too loudly--and the HR assistant, Sarah, stands up from her cubicle with her finger pressed to her lips, glaring right at them. 

“Just have to keep you down to earth, ya little weasel,” Hyungwon mutters. 

“Well, what about you, huh? Have you seduced the sexy alien yet?” Changkyun is hidden from view now, tucked into his desk behind his cubicle walls. His voice is muffled, but he’s clearly annunciating so Hyungwon knows he isn’t done this conversation. 

“My job wasn’t to  _ seduce him _ , Changkyun. It was just to get close enough to him to write a book.”

“There’s no way that book will sell well without a little sex appeal, Hyungwon.”

“Oh, right, because befriending the only known literal  _ Space. Alien _ . won’t be enough for the masses,” Hyungwon scoffs. “He’s from fucking space, Changkyun. I don’t even know if he has sex.”

“Well, why wouldn’t he? He has a dick, right?”

“What? I--yeah, but--how the fuck do you know that?”

“That suit isn’t made of much, my friend. You could see that dick from the Hubble.”

“Jesus,” Hyungown huffs, rubbing at his face and fighting away mental images of Hoseok’s dick (which he  _ has seen _ , fucking hell). “Well just because he has the parts doesn’t mean it’s something he does. We’re like...different species.”

“Looks human enough to me,” Changkyun declares. “I’d still fuck him.”

From behind them, Hyungwon hears Sarah grumbling. 

“You have a boyfriend now, right? No more dreaming about fucking my friend the space alien,” Hyungwon replies, for some reason irritated by the thought of Changkyun lusting after Hoseok. There’s this weird pinprick of frustration at the back of Hyungwon’s neck, like he’s being pinched at the scruff like a young puppy. Teeth holding him in a loose, guiding grip and trying to direct him where he should go, but he doesn’t know where he’s being taken. 

“Whatever,” Changkyun snorts. 

There’s a pause, and Hyungwon almost relaxes. 

“Would still make a better book if y’all fucked.”

“I don’t want to fuck him!” Hyungwon cries, rising up from his chair so suddenly that it spins back against the wall of the cubicle behind him with a crash. “You fuck him then! You fuck him! I don’t care!” 

Sarah, red-faced, stands again from her cubicle, the one directly behind Hyungwon, the one that he’d knocked his chair into. 

“Hyungwon,” she says, clearly struggling to remain calm, “do we need to have a chat in my office? Do you need the swear jar again?”

Hyungwon flickers his gaze down at his desk, feeling thoroughly chastised in front of all of his peers. “No, Sarah, I’m okay. I’m sorry. Just need more coffee.”

Sarah nods, mousy brown hair pulled tight into a bun at the crown of her head. “Let me know if you would like me to go over the company HR handbook again.”

“No, ma’am, that’s fine.” 

Changkyun chuckles from his desk, and Hyungwon feels his morning coffee climbing up the walls of his esophagus and bubbling at the back of his throat. It burns. Everything burns. 

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

“So you’ve made contact a few times now?” Hyungsoo asks, elbows on his finely lacquered wood desk. It’s a true writing desk, one with a built-in leather panel. 

“Yeah, H--Wonho and I see each other from time to time. He, uh, came over for Christmas,” Hyungwon says, throat feeling weirdly itchy. 

“He came over? To your apartment?” Hyungsoo sounds enraptured, and some of Hyungwon’s apprehension melts away. 

This is promotion-level stuff, Chae Hyungwon. Don’t blow this for one dumb, naive alien boy. 

“Yeah, he’s been over a couple’a times now. My cat really loves him,” Hyungwon explains, thinking of the way Monbebe has recently taken to waiting by the window, looking for a sign of purple behind the glass. “He really likes Korean food. Apparently he grew up in Jersey.”

Hyungsoo’s eyes widen just slightly as he registers that information, and his jaw flexes beneath his smooth, tan skin. “Jersey? Did he say when he got here? Why he’s here?”

Hyungwon feels that pinprick again. That bite at the back of his neck. Something telling him to shut his damn trap before it’s too much to take back. “I’d rather not spoil everything just yet, Sir, you know? My ghostwriter has my notes, and he’ll have a couple chapters ready by early February, I’m sure.”

Hyungsoo sits back in his tall leather desk chair and appraises Hyungwon for a moment. “This is a very important assignment, Hyungwon, you know that right? I’m trusting you with something very, very big here.”

“I know, Sir. And, hey, I mean, I’m doing okay so far, right? I’ve had him at my literal house. I know his favorite foods, and his n--”

Hyungsoo runs his tongue over his lips, and there’s something threatening to spill from Hyungwon’s mouth that isn’t meant to come out, so Hyungwon instead says, “I know he’s scared of heights.”

Hyungsoo tips his head back against the headrest of his chair. “Heights? He’s a fucking flying space alien, and he doesn’t like heights? What, like, rollercoasters?”

“I dunno. He just said he doesn’t like heights. Heights and, like, not being loved. Well, he’s scared he’s seen as some kinda freak. Very human, huh?” Hyungwon forces a laugh up from his gut, and it sounds like poison in his own skull.

“Hm,” Hyungsoo hums. “Curious, for sure.”

Hyungwon nips his teeth against the inside of his cheek and tastes iron. “Can I get back to work now, Sir? Or is there anything else?”

“No, sorry for keeping you away from your work, Hyungwon. Just wanted to check in. You have any New Year’s plans?”

“I think my roommate wants to go to this party in Bed-Stuy.”

“You don’t go to Times Square, huh?”

“Sir, I avoid Times Square like the plague. I get hives just thinking about Times Square.”

“There is something about it, though, don’t you think? The whole world watches that one ball drop. All those people--I mean  _ millions _ of people, just crammed in that space just to--Hyungwon, are you okay?”

Hyungwon shakes himself. “Sorry, I was just thinking about millions of people being crammed into Times Square, and I could feel the hives coming out.”

Hyungsoo bellows a laugh and nods. “Sorry, sorry, you’re right. It is kind of horrifying.”

“Brooklyn on New Years isn’t much better, honestly. But I’ll take it over that nightmare any day.”

“Well, I hope you have a lovely New Years, far from Times Square,” Hyungsoo says, waving to his office door. Hyungwon is officially dismissed. He stands from the leather armchair across from Hyungsoo’s stage 

“You too, Sir. Should I give my ghostwriter’s invoice papers to you directly to sign, or can I just give it to payroll?” 

“He’s good?” Hyungsoo leans back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. 

For all that Minhyuk is a sack of whoopie cushions, he’s good at what he does, so Hyungwon nods. 

“Payroll is fine. Just tell them I gave verbal approval.”

“Thank you, Sir. See you in 2018.”

“See you in 2018, Hyungwon.”

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

“You don’t have anything a little more…festive?” Hyunwoo asks, looking judgmentally at Hyungwon’s loose black sweater as it drapes over his frame like a child wearing a sheet ghost costume. Hyungwon has also covered up with a black face mask over his nose and mouth, and a thick gray sweater looped around under his chin. “Anything a little less...like you’re dying of the flu?”

Hyungwon tugs his face mask away from his ear so he can speak. “What do you want from me? I’m coming out, aren’t I?”

Jihyo comes in from the kitchen, her heels loud on the hardwoods. Hyungwon would protest her wearing shoes in the apartment, but Jihyo has earned the right. Her tiny, soft frame is tightly encased in a dark oxblood dress, and if Hyungwon could be sexually attracted to any woman, it would be Jihyo. She has a soft thickness in places, something sturdier than other girls. She works out a lot, her and Hyunwoo both, and their legs are tight with muscle. 

Hyungwon looks down at his lanky twig legs wrapped in black denim and sighs. “You look nice, Jihyo.”

“Stop eyeing my fiancee like that,” Hyunwoo grumbles, pulling Jihyo to his chest, and her head barely reaches his shoulders, even in her heels. Hyungwon hates how cute it is. 

“Forgive me for complimenting her,” Hyungwon snorts, pulling his facemask back on. “Can we go now, please? Before I chicken out?”

“Is your friend meeting us there?”

“Yeah, he’s in Queens, so he’ll meet us there,” Hyungwon says, tugging on his sneakers. Hyunwoo shakes his head at him as he pulls on his nice black oxfords. “Have fun getting beer spilled on those, my friend.”

Jihyo giggles and shoves Hyunwoo through the door. “He’s probably right, dear. But I plan on taking so many tequila shots that I don’t care about my shoes.” 

“Tequila?” Hyunwoo cries, as they walk down the couple blocks to the train. “Baby, you know how you get when you drink tequila.”

“Good thing I have a gorgeous giant lego brick to take me home,” Jihyo chirps, jumping up onto Hyunwoo’s back and latching onto him. Hyungwon feels the adoration seeping from between their bodies and dripping onto the sidewalk. He wants to swat it away like steam wafting thickly from a pot on the stove. He feels himself tiptoeing along the sidewalk, afraid to step in their love. 

“I vote tequila too,” Hyungwon agrees, his own single-hood suddenly plainly evident. He thinks briefly of texting Hoseok but then reasons that would be the worst fucking idea ever. “Very tequila.”

 

The bar is bigger than Hyungwon anticipated, but still very packed with bodies. It smells like craft beer and humidity and feels a bit like the inside of a mouth--a hung-over mouth. 

“I hate it,” Hyungwon crows over the pulsing sounds of EDM music coming from the back room, where bodies are writhing together in some vague semblance of dancing. Hyungwon would make a much better DJ than this guy--whoever it is--who is blasting what sounds to Hyungwon like a kazoo played over an old Spice Girls track. 

Jihyo comes over with two tequila shots, the liquor splashing over the lips. “Come now, Hyungwonnie, it’s not so bad. Look, I brought you a New Years gift. You and me, now, okay?”

Hyungwon clinks their glasses together. “Happy New Year, Ji.”

They shoot the tequila back in unison. Jihyo licks her lips after, running her tongue over the slightly coral-tinted skin, while Hyungwon just grimaces and chokes. 

“Better?” Jihyo calls over the music, with Hyunwoo’s thick arm snaked around her little waist to keep her from getting jostled in the crowd. 

“Gonna need like four more of those before I deign to call anything about this situation better.” 

Hyungwon gets two more shots in before Changkyun shows up. He’s dragging someone behind him through as he squirms through the crowd over to their standing table in the corner of the room by the windows, where at least there is a slight breeze. 

“Happy New Year!” Changkyun shouts, yanking his leather coat off and shoving it into the waiting arms of the guy behind him. 

Hyungwon slides his gaze over to the guy. He’s Changkyun’s height, has a similar build, but there’s a sharpness about him that contrasts with Changkyun’s softness. Where Changkyun’s cheeks are round and pillowy, this guy’s face is all angles, his jaw like a smooth, shiny ceramic knife. There’s something predatory about how he looks, but somehow he also looks like a filial son. 

“This your guy?” Hyungwon asks, and Changkyun nods, pulling the guy against his side. 

“Mhm, this is my Daddy--this is Ki,” he says, giggling when Kihyun’s face flushes red in the dim light of the bar. 

“I don’t need to know about the first name, thanks,” Hyungwon replies, holding his hand out. “Nice to meet you, Ki. I’m Changkyun’s co-worker. Hyungwon.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you, Hyungwon. Changkyun has said only good things,” Ki says, and his voice is airy and sweet like a whispered song, even as he yells over the music. 

“Don’t lie to me, man. It doesn’t make a good first impression,” Hyungwon protests. “I know that little weasel has probably told you horrible things.”

Kihyun looks down at Changkyun, and there’s something in his gaze that feels oddly too intimate, and Hyungwon has to look away. But there’s nowhere to look, because Jihyo is now feeding Hyungwoo a boot of Guinness, tipping the glass back with the rim pressed against his lips as she coos at him. 

“I wanna dance,” Changkyun says, tugging at Kihyun’s navy blue sweater. “Please? Dance with me? We still have like forty minutes until the ball drops.”

“How will we even know?”

“Oh, they project it behind the dance floor. It’s really cool. They shut all the lights off and then it’s just the ball dropping and the countdown,” Jihyo says, patting Hyunwoo’s lips with a napkin after he finishes his beer. “Let’s go dance, too, babe.”

Hyunwoo looks at Hyungwon for confirmation, and Hyungwon waves them away. “I’m  _ fine. _ Christ, just go dance, ya horny teens.”

Changkyun holds Kihyun and grabs Jihyo’s wrist to pull her and Kihyun in tandem through the crowd. Hyunwoo holds Jihyo’s hips, following obediently. 

Hyungwon stands with their coats by the table, and a waitress comes over with a tray of champagne flutes. He grabs two, announcing one is for his date, even though there’s no reason to announce anything to her. She doesn’t care. Just nods and walks away. 

Hyungwon downs both flutes in quick succession. The liquor hits him slowly. It always takes longer for alcohol to hit him. Maybe it has to do with how long his body is, how far his mouth is from his stomach, how long the rivers of his veins are as they transport the liquor all through his system. But when the liquor hits him, it hits him hard.

The dizzying thickness of warm fog settles under his cheekbones and in his ear canals and fingertips. It turns his kneecaps to molten chocolate, and the rungs of his rib bones to warm sun beams. 

A girl approaches Hyungwon’s table. He looks at her for a moment before shouting, “Yes?”

She’s tall, Japanese, maybe, hair dyed blonde, dark at the roots. She hesitates a moment, clearly taken aback by Hyungwon’s response, before she says, “You here alone?”

Hyungwon’s tongue is heavy in his mouth, and he says, “Obviously,” much more menacingly than he means to. 

“You’re handsome,” she replies, and for a moment, Hyungwon really regrets how absolutely, faithfully homosexual he is. She’s pretty, her sweetly-curved eyes rimmed with smokey gray shadow, her lips small but pouty. “Do you wanna dance?”

“I’m sorry,” Hyungwon says, not sure what he’s apologizing for. “I don’t. I don’t dance.”

“That’s okay.” She tugs at the hem of her leather skirt and gives Hyungwon a shy smile. “I don’t either, really.”

“No,” Hyungwon repeats, “I’m really sorry. I don’t. I can’t.”

She looks confused, teeth digging into her bottom lip, smearing her lipstick, but then she nods. “No problem. Have a good night, then.”

Hyungwon hasn’t smoked in years--not since freshman year of college, really, but he feels that itchy need pinging in his chest again. He abandons the pile of his friend’s coats and wanders out through the side door to the alley where people stand around smoking. A guy wearing a cowboy hat lets Hyungwon bum a smoke, and Hyungwon stands against the brick, holding the cigarette as it smolders between his fingers. 

He brings it to his lips, and for some reason he hears Hoseok’s voice in his head. He isn’t sure if any words are even heard. It’s just that familiar timbre, that kind of lisping deepness. Hyungwon shivers, shakes his head, and draws in a puff of the cigarette. 

The smoke burns the whole way down, and Hyungwon coughs loudly, drawing the attention of everyone standing near him. He drops the rest of the burning cigarette and stamps it out with the heel of his sneaker. 

The air cuts sharply into his bare skin, but Hyungwon can barely feel it now, the alcohol burning through his blood. He wonders if this is how Hoseok always feels. Impervious to the things that plague humans. As he thinks it, he feels it. 

Snow.

His palm cups in the air in front of his face, and he watches as the fat flakes float down and melt onto his skin. His palm turns red from the cold, but Hyungwon can’t stop watching. Hyungwon wonders what Hoseok thinks about snow. Do they have snow on his home planet? Does he even know the weather of his home planet? 

Is he alone somewhere too? Watching over the people of this ugly fucking city and waiting for one of them to expose their evil intentions, so he can rush out from the shadows to save the day? Has Hoseok even celebrated the New Year? Does he understand what it means? To make it another year on earth when everything on this planet is trying to make it so you don’t make it to the next year? 

[Hyungwon 11:43 pm]: can u come here?

Ugh, Hyungwon, you garbage heap. You absolute Slenderman of a human. He’s trying to keep humanity safe, and you’re lonely and angsty. Leave him alone. 

He probably won’t answer anyhow. Everyone knows New Years is, like, New York’s most dangerous day. All those people. 

All those people. 

Trapped together behind the police barricades for hours in the cold. Hyungwon is checking his weather app (it’s 11 degrees Fahrenheit), when his screen lights up. 

[Wonho 11:46 pm]: Are you okay?

Hyungwon shouldn’t answer. He really shouldn’t. Hoseok isn’t really his friend. Isn’t really his anything. 

It’s for the book, you dumb tree. You truly heinous twig-monster. 

He shuts his phone off and tucks it back into his pocket before making his way back inside. He finds that girl from before, the tall Japanese girl with the bleached hair and short leather skirt, and he asks her to dance. She seems confused, but she smiles as he pulls her to the dance floor. 

Hyungwon doesn’t know where his friends are in the crowd. It’s loud, and there are smoke machines and pulsing lights, and, fuck, everything is spinning. His limbs move sluggishly, so he settles them on the girl’s waist, and she shifts closer to him, her body warm and smooth and fluid under his palms. 

Time seems to stretch, and Hyungwon feels like there’s dirt beneath his nails because he can’t get comfortable. The projector starts up, and there’s a wide shot of Times Square now showing on the large white sheet against the far wall. There’s the sound of cheering, shouting, and there’s a band performing in what vaguely sounds like Korean, which is how Hyungwon knows he’s much too drunk.

That, and there’s Hoseok’s voice again. It sounds like it’s right behind him. Hyungwon fights to ignore it again, but then there’s a hand on his arm. The grip is firm. 

He wheels around, ready to verbally blast whoever is trying to kill his buzz, and it’s him.

It’s really fucking him. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Hyungwon yells hoarsely. 

“You okay?” the girl asks, touching Hyungwon’s hip. 

“I’m fine. Sorry, I...I need to talk to him.”

She nods, and Hyungwon drags Hoseok back out through the side doors to the alleyway. No one else is there now, since the snow is coming down harder, thicker. There’s already a coating on the asphalt, and Hyungwon sees the wetness in Hoseok’s hair as it hangs over his eyes. 

“Again, what the fuck are you doing here? People will recognize you. People will--will--why?” Hyungwon babbles, tongue like plushie stuffing in his mouth. Totally useless. 

“You didn’t answer my text,” Hoseok says, barely blinking as the snow lands heavy on his eyelashes and hair. “You’re okay?”

“I’m fine. I was just drunk. I’m still drunk. I’m fine. Go back to where you were,” Hyungwon says, shooing Hoseok with hands flapping up to the sky. “Go, go!”

“You don’t seem okay,” Hoseok replies, stepping closer, hands settling at the base of Hyungwon’s throat, as if checking his pulse. “Your eyes are all weird, and your heart is beating really fast.”

“It’s beating fast because you aren’t supposed to be here. How did you even find me?”

“I followed the sound of your heart,” Hoseok says, as if he were simply declaring his favorite color. “When you didn’t answer me, I got nervous, so I listened for it.”

“That’s really--that’s--” Hyungwon slurs, his back hitting the cold, wet brick wall of the alleyway as he seeks something solid, something that isn’t Hoseok. 

Behind them there’s the countdown. Starting at 20. It’s loud, and it sinks into Hyungwon’s pores and eats at him until he can’t think. 

Hoseok moves closer again, reaching for him, and Hyungwon feels scared. He shoves at Hoseok’s chest and drops his gaze to their feet. 

“Don’t,” he says, pulse beating hard and loud in his solar plexus. 

“You’re my friend, and I’m worried about you,” Hoseok replies, skin wet with snow, apples of his cheeks flushed pale purple beneath the building’s exterior lights. “I’m--”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Hyungwon repeats, sternly. “You can’t just come when I call you. I’m not important enough for that. You’re humanity’s only hope or whatever, you know? You’re--you’re--”

Hoseok drags Hyungwon against him, and it’s a tighter embrace than Hyungwon ever remembers experiencing, but Hoseok doesn’t really understand his strength. Has probably never hugged before. 

“I’ve never done this before, really,” Hoseok breathes, air hot against Hyungwon’s neck. “Sorry if I’m doing it wrong.”

“It’s not wrong. It’s good. It’s really good,” Hyungwon says, and his teeth start chattering as the coldness seeps in with his renewed sobriety. 

“Humanity should be okay for one night, right? They can be, right?” Hoseok asks, like he wants Hyungwon’s permission. His permission to act human for a night. To just be Hyungwon’s friend for a night and not be Wonho, the alien that fell to the earth to swear his fealty to the people who fear and worship him. 

“Yeah, maybe,” Hyungwon answers, teeth chattering harder as he presses his forehead against Hoseok’s shoulder. He realizes with a start that Hoseok is wearing normal clothes. Well, he’s wearing a heavy wool peacoat that reaches all the way down to his knees. Maybe shrouding his suit from the world, just for a bit. “Do you know what people do...do you know...New Years?”

“I’ve been on Earth for a while now, Hyungwon,” Hoseok says, and he sounds almost as anxious as Hyungwon now. Like he’s realizing quickly that they’ve backed themselves physically and metaphorically into a wall. The bricks are hard behind Hyungwon’s back, steadying him as he winds an arm around Hoseok’s neck. 

“You really shouldn’t be here,” Hyungwon says once more, just for good measure, just so in the future there isn’t a question whether Hyungwon warned Hoseok to stay away. He wants to say  _ I’m not good, don’t trust me, don’t trust any of us, we’ll betray you as soon as you let us in, that’s how humans work _ \--

Hoseok is leaning in as Hyungwon tips his head back against the bricks, surrendering to it, even as snow continues coating them. Maybe it’ll freeze and bury them there together before anything else can happen, before anything can get worse. 

But of course it doesn’t. 

The countdown reaches 1, and Hyungwon gives in to it, to the calming sturdiness of Hoseok’s body as he holds him against the bricks, to the contrasting gentle softness of his lips as they press against his own. He’s still shivering, and he might find it funny, the way he tries to lean into the kiss while his lips shake through the chill. Hoseok brings his warm hands up and cups them over Hyungwon’s ears, and everything feels warmer, more focussed. 

And that’s when the screaming starts. 

Hoseok jerks back. 

“What is it? What’s--? It’s probably just the ball drop. It’s--” Hyungwon reaches out again, desperate for it now and angry at himself, but Hoseok is shaking his head, face tipped up at the sky. 

“I’m sorry,” Hoseok says. “This is why I can’t have this.”

And then he takes off into the sky. 

The screaming crescendos inside the building, and Hyungwon runs back inside, shaking all over as the snow melts into chilled wetness against his skin. The mass of bodies is panicked, roiling this way and that in the room, rushing for the door. 

On screen, there’s a replay of the ball dropping. It’s surface is gleaming red and pink and purple and orange; all nearly 3000 panels of crystal glimmering with the light of almost 10,000 little bulbs. 

The crystal shatters, bursting outward, and there’s a boom like nothing Hyungwon has ever heard. The crowd onscreen shrieks, ducking as millions of shards of crystal rain down from the One Times Square building. The police barricades are keeping them in, keeping them trapped there. 

Hyungwon is jostled back and forth as everyone rushes out of the bar around him. 

Changkyun finds him, gripping Kihyun’s hand, white-knuckled and pale-faced. “We have to...my brother is there. I have to...Hyungwon, we need to get out of here. Do you need to stay with me? Where’s Hyunwoo?”

“It’ll be okay,” Kihyun coos, though he looks lost and confused and dazed. “Wonho will be there. He’ll get there and...I don’t know why he wasn’t there, but he’ll get there.”

Hyungwon’s body is wracked with painful shudders, and he curls into himself. “I did this.”

“What? Hyungwon, we have to  _ go _ . Let’s  _ go _ ,” Changkyun orders, yanking at Hyungwon’s sweater. 

Onscreen, Wonho flies in, and Changkyun, Kihyun, and Hyungwon watch as military helicopters circle around him and fire round after round into his body. 

“What are they,” Hyungwon screams. “He’s there to help, you fucking, you  _ fucking _ !”

“Hyungwon, please,” Changkyun urges, sobbing now. 

“They think he did this,” Kihyun says, dumbfounded. “They think he’s responsible.”

“What?”

“Who else could fly a bomb into the New Years ball without being noticed?”

“He didn’t. He wouldn’t,” Hyungwon protests, and Kihyun turns to him, gaze harsh and sharp. 

“How would you know that?” 

Hyungwon swallows, teeth chattering harder now. “I just know.”

Onscreen, Wonho drops to the New Years performance stage, blood trickling from his wounds like slow-running tree sap. The crowd is pushing away from him, screaming, and as the camera zooms in on his face, there’s sheer and complete terror there. 

His eyes are wide and shocked, like he’s finally living a dream he’s had countless times before. 

“Come quietly,” a voice rings out from one of the helicopters, “and we won’t shoot again.”

“It’s a trap,” Hyungwon rasps out. 

Beneath his feet, there are thousands of shards of glass, and Wonho takes one step forward, arms raised in innocence. His lips are moving, but obviously they can’t hear anything since he isn’t wearing a microphone. 

“It’s a trap!” Hyungwon screams into the nearly-empty bar now, the feeling of Hoseok’s lips still burning on his own. 

Kihyun and Changkyun grab Hyungwon’s arms and start trying to bodily drag him from the bar. Hyungwon’s eyes won’t leave the screen. The One Times Square building suddenly shudders once more, and the top floor windows shatter. The building begins to collapse, and someone in the helicopter with a fucking trigger finger starts firing at Hoseok again. 

“We said don’t move,” they’re shouting at him, even though he hasn’t done anything.

Hoseok tries to fly away now, knowing there is no way out of this for him. The barrels of the helicopter guns aim at him at once, and then Hoseok is like a bird shot right out of the sky. 

He falls straight back down to the earth, his weight collapsing the New Years Eve stage. He falls right through it, leaving a crater where his body was. 

Hyungwon is screaming, delirious, as Kihyun and Changkyun herd him from the bar.

The screen goes black, feed cut off. 

The streets are madness. None of the trains are running, so everyone is waiting for cabs, for Ubers, for Lyfts, for someone to carry them home. 

Kihyun finds someone trying to break into his car, trying to take it, and he kicks the man away with the sole of his boot aimed right to the man’s stomach. He helps Hyungwon and Changkyun into their seats and barrels off down the street. 

Changkyun is still quietly sobbing, phone pressed to his ear as he waits to hear from his brother. Kihyun has a hand on the wheel, the other gripping Changkyun’s thigh to steady him, to calm him.

Hyungwon shakes, alone, in the backseat, until Kihyun pulls up in front of his building. “You sure you don’t wanna stay with us at Changkyun’s place? You don’t even know if Hyunwoo will be here.”

“I want to be with my cat,” Hyungwon says, clambering from the car like his legs don’t work any more. There are sirens all around, and Hyungwon notices the front end of a car rammed into the street light on the corner. No one is inside the car, the airbags deployed into empty air. 

Hyungwon’s steps are heavy in the stairwell until he reaches his apartment, tearing the door open. 

Monbebe is waiting there in a little heap by the door for him, and he drops to his knees to scoop her up, pressing her soft, fluffy belly to his face. Inhaling the scent of dryer sheets that she somehow maintains despite never being in contact with them. 

“My baby,” he says, miserable. 

She peeps a reply and wriggles to get free. He drops her down to the hardwoods and curls up there with her. 

The apartment is empty. 

The boom of explosives pounds in Hyungwon’s skull cavity, and everything feels like it’s sinking beneath him. 

What if he’s dead.

What if people are dead.

What if it’s his fault.

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

Hyungwon falls asleep there, curled up by the door, Monbebe warm and furry by his face. Her breathing is calm and even, so Hyungwon’s breath calms and evens out to match it. 

What feels like hours later, Hyungwon’s bones start to ache against the wood flooring, and there are paws kneading into his chest. 

“What? What do you want? You ate already. The world is ending. There’s no time.”

Monbebe paws at him harder, nails prickling his skin beneath his sweater. She mews right in his face, almost like she’s screaming.

All at once, Hyungwon knows.

He jerks up so quickly his head reels with it, and then he’s there. 

In the window. 

He collapses, heavy as dead weight, bleeding and panting and crying, right through Hyungwon’s open window once the glass is lifted. 

His mask is gone. 

Hyungwon isn’t sure how that little strip of leather kept so much of Hoseok from him, but it had. There is something vulnerable, delicate, dangerously sweet about Hoseok’s bare face. 

“It hurts,” Hoseok whimpers. “Please, it hurts.”

Hyungwon drops down beside him, hands hovering over Hoseok’s skin, the wounds already knitting together again before his eyes, locking the bullets inside. 

“I can’t. I don’t know how. Hoseok, why did you go?”

“Because I have to. Please, Hyungwon, get them out. Please.” There’s tears and blood and snot on Hoseok’s gorgeous, gorgeous face, and everything is wrong. 

“You don’t have to,” Hyungwon pleads. “Let me take you to the hospital.”

Hoseok shakes his head against the hard floor. “They already hate me. I don’t want them to know how different I am. How scary.”

“They don’t ha--”

“They shot at me. They shot me down like King fucking Kong, Hyungwon. They’re terrified of me,” Hoseok says, body positively quaking with the misery of it all. 

“Well, I’m not,” Hyungwon replies, as if that matters.

Hoseok turns back to face him, and his eyes are bright pale lavender, nearly all iris. It should be terrifying, but Hyungwon can’t find the energy or will to be frightened. 

“You don’t scare me,” Hyungwon says again. 

“I’m gonna die on your floor,” Hoseok says weakly.

“No you aren’t. I’m putting you in the tub, and giving you a paring knife. Get as many out as you can. I’ll help you with the rest. If I feel like I can,” Hyungwon replies, angered for some reason by Hoseok’s resignation. 

Minutes later, Hoseok is naked in Hyungwon’s bathtub, biting into a rolled up washcloth as he digs bullets free from his arms and abdomen. Hyungwon sits outside the bathroom, covering his ears as the screams come, muffled in the washcloth. 

When things go quiet, Hyungwon presses the door open and peers inside. “Hoseok?”

He’s passed out, head tipped back against the tile, blood and grime drying on his beautiful skin. Hyungwon sees the endless wrinkled scars on Hoseok’s bare skin now, the pinkish burns, the uneven rips from knives and bullets, the harsh mottled scars of raised white flesh from things even worse. 

And he’s angry. 

He’s so angry.

He turns the shower on over Hoseok, cold water raining down over him to clear away the blood and dirt and snot. He strips himself down, climbing in with a yank of the shower curtain behind them. 

Hoseok’s eyelids flicker open, and he looks up at Hyungwon from the floor of the tub. 

“Is this okay?” Hyungwon asks, straddling Hoseok with his thin legs on either side of Hoseok’s thick thighs. 

Hoseok nods wordlessly, just watching as Hyungwon grabs soap from the ledge of the tub and lathers it between his palms. 

“You’re not scary,” Hyungwon hisses, water dripping over his lips as he speaks. He rubs his hands over Hoseok’s skin, scratching the blood away with his nails when it won’t come away from Hoseok’s skin. It’s driving him nuts, the way Hoseok bleeds so easily. So human. “You’re the least scary fucking person I’ve ever met. You’re a goddamn bunny. You’re harmless. You’re--”

“Hyungwon,” Hoseok says, finally, grabbing Hyungwon’s wrists. “Stop. I’m okay now. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. We’re awful. We’re the worst. Humans,” he whines, watching the way Hoseok’s abs twitch beneath him. 

“Hyungwon,” Hoseok says again. He shifts a little beneath Hyungwon, and Hyungwon feels the fury melting away into something liquid and hot. Hoseok’s skin is slick and warm beneath his, and Hyungwon’s breath puffs out sharply. “I should go now. This isn’t...isn’t a friends thing, is it?”

“You already kissed me, you dumbass,” Hyungwon replies, voice barely a whisper through the pounding shower water. “But you did almost just die-- _ again _ .”

“I did,” Hoseok says, hands settling on Hyungwon’s hip bones. “You’re so small. Like holding a hummingbird, the way your pulse beats so rapid.”

“Don’t crush me, you big oaf,” Hyungwon breathes, diving down to press their mouths together again. Everything is wet, and not in a romantic, easy way. In the way that makes Hoseok taste like water instead of Hoseok. But Hyungwon will take it. 

Because Hoseok is solid and mostly whole beneath him. He’s alive, and he’s not scary at all. He’s.

He’s fleshy and soft as he maneuvers them under the spray of water and guides Hyungwon so their chests are pressed together, Hyungwon’s legs locked around his waist. Hyungwon moves with him, desperate for it, for the heat of Hoseok’s skin against his own. 

It’s been so long since he’s felt the sturdy presence of another body against his own like this. And Hoseok has the sturdiest body Hyungwon has ever felt. Hyungwon’s hands travel down between their bodies, fingers tracing the ripples of muscle on Hoseok’s stomach. His body is hard but still soft beneath his fingers, and Hyungwon wants to touch all of it. 

“Hyungwon,” Hoseok gasps, and Hyungwon realizes with a start that Hoseok is hard against his thigh. “It still kind of hurts, I’m sorry.”

Hyungwon stands abruptly, hair wet and limp over his eyes. “God, I’m sorry. You almost died, and I just, like, attacked you. With my mouth.”

“Don’t apologize, please,” Hoseok laughs. “I just...I’ve never…”

Hyungwon’s mouth presses together. “Oh. You’ve never…”

“And I don’t want the first time to be...you know…”

“With me,” Hyungwon answers.

“No! What? I was gonna say I don’t want it to be right after I almost die.”

Hyungwon swallows, shutting off the spray of water and reaching for two towels. “But another time?”

Hoseok nods wordlessly. 

Hyungwon hands him a towel. “I want you to stay here. With me. Just until this dies down.”

“You wanna protect me?” Hoseok teases.

Hyungwon nods. “I’m gonna.”

Hoseok smiles and reaches out to touch Hyungwon’s cheek. “Thank you, Hyungwon. I will work hard to earn the trust you give me.”

“You don’t have to earn anything,” Hyungwon spits. 

Hoseok grips his towel around his waist and stands in the doorway to Hyungwon’s bathroom, dripping and beautiful. 

Hyungwon can’t look away. “I do.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: had to change the rating of this fic  
> if you don't enjoy reading about sexytimes, please ignore the last section after the stars!!

Hoseok doesn’t remember when he started dreaming. Maybe it was a symptom of slowly acclimating to earth. Something about his body needing a way to sort out what it was experiencing, all these new temperatures and precipitations and pollutions and sounds. 

He doesn’t remember much about his home planet. The last thing he remembers is his mother’s face, gleaming and bright vivid lilac, bent over him in his space pod. He remembers her bowing low to touch her lips to his forehead, and Oh, how he wishes he could remember that sensation. 

He remembers the heat of flames licking at his skin. No one on his home planet wore clothing. Kihyun had to teach him about modesty after he fell, with some kind of Bible story. Hoseok still doesn’t really get it. Everyone has a body. 

_ Be good,  _ his mother had said, in their native tongue, one that Hoseok also can barely recall--only that it had been heavy in the back of his throat and light on the tip of his tongue. And if Kihyun teaching Hoseok English is the reason they both slur and lisp the same sounds, Hoseok doesn’t mind that at all. Seems like something brothers should share.

Hoseok had been loud, Kihyun said, when he dreamed for the first time. They shared a room then, too. Two twin beds pressed on opposite walls, just like now. When he dreamed the first time, he’d been screaming hoarsely, like he’d never screamed before. Screaming until the sound broke, shattered in his throat. Hoseok doesn’t remember that dream either. He thinks he used to be able to remember things much more clearly on his home planet, but maybe that’s just naively-placed nostalgia. 

Hoseok still dreams rarely. Most of the time he doesn’t need sleep at all, let alone some kind of...unconscious-mind unjumbling. It’s all very human, the whole thing. But Hoseok likes it, sometimes, when he dreams. 

Tonight, though, Hoseok dreams of collapsing buildings. Of bullets ripping through his skin. Of looking down at his hands and seeing red. Red? His palms are dripping with it. It doesn’t even feel like his blood. It feels too loose, too wet. It feels human. 

In his dream, he looks up again from his hands, and the city is dead. Everywhere around him, streets washed over with human blood. Cars flipped over and smoking. Buildings turned to ash. There aren’t even any sounds. No screams. Just the sound of Hoseok’s breath slow and wheezing from between his lips. 

_ You’ve destroyed everything _ , a voice calls from the rubble. It’s Hyungwon. His legs are trapped beneath two large support beams, his head cradled by slabs of thick concrete.

Hoseok runs to him, holds him as he dies, as everything around him lays dead already. Somewhere, he knows, Kihyun is dead. His mother may be dead, too. 

_ Why did you come here?  _

_ I didn’t. I was sent here. _

_ It’s all gone _ .

It smells like death. Like acrid smoke and that particularly earthy scent of rot. And, beneath that, there’s that terribly familiar scent. The scent like--

Like bacon?

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

Hoseok jerks awake, rolling off the couch in his haste to re-insert himself into the real world. He catches himself on one arm, palm against the cold wood floor of Hyungwon’s apartment. 

“You’re not dead,” he observes, watching Hyungwon delicately pinch bacon strips from a hot pan onto a plate lined with paper towels, blowing on his fingertips after touching each piece. 

Hyungwon’s cell phone is tucked up against his ear with his shoulder, and he’s hissing into it, words muffled by the sound of exponentially louder sizzling bacon. Hyungwon notices Hoseok climbing back up onto the couch and says something quick and terse into the phone before hanging up.

“You’re not dead,” Hoseok repeats.

“So it seems,” Hyungwon replies, waggling his hand in the air to dispel the heat over the hot pan of bacon grease. “Bad dream?”

“I got shot at on national television last night,” Hoseok says, groggily fighting to sit up against the back of the couch.

Hyungwon’s lips purse, and he nods. “That you did. Listen, I think that--”

His phone rings again. Hoseok decides human technology, while convenient, is also incredibly, cloyingly annoying. 

“Hyunwoo,” Hyungwon gasps, swiping at the phone screen to take the call. “Jesus, Hyunwoo. Are you okay? Is Jihy--Oh. Oh, thank God. Thank fucking God. I tried to find you, but then, and, you know it was...yeah. Yeah. Jesus. Fuck. Hyunwoo, I’m so glad you’re ok. And Jihyo. Fuck. Yeah, Changkyun and Kihyun texted me saying they got home safe around 5 am. Yeah, all the trains are shut down. I could Uber over if you--you sure?” Hyungwon sighs, tipping his head up to the ceiling like he might cry. “Okay. Be safe. I know. I know that. Your muscle mass means nothing to me, Son Hyunwoo. Jihyo is probably more capable of incapacitating an enemy than--Good! I’m glad she heard me and is nodding. She deserves the compliment.” A pause. “No, for the last time, Hyunwoo, I’m fucking gay. In what universe would a gay man want to steal your female fiancée?” Another pause. “I’m not aware of that universe. Sorry. Nope. I like dicks. Big dicks. Big p--” Hyungwon seems to note Hoseok’s existence again, and he snaps his mouth shut. “Well, anyhow. I’ve gotta call my work and see if it’s okay to work from home this week. Huh? Oh, no, uh, I’ve just got...I’m not feeling well. Anyhow, I’m glad you two are--I know I said this already, you overgrown Rilakkuma knock-off. Just take the sentiment. I love you.” He raises his voice. “Love you too, Jiji!” 

When he hangs up, he walks over to the couch with a plate of bacon. Hoseok just stares at him.

“Human friendship is strange,” he says, pinching a slice of perfectly crisp bacon off the plate and tossing it into his open, waiting mouth. “But thank goodness for bacon.”

“Amen,” Hyungwon says. 

“So...no trains, huh?” 

“Looks like it might be a few days before they run again. The city is still in a panic.” Hyungwon nervously drops to the cushion beside Hoseok and roves his eyes over every exposed inch of Hoseok’s abdomen. “You’re healed? Does it still hurt?”

Hoseok shakes his head. “Not at all. I might still have a few bruised bones or something, but I feel fine enough.” 

Hoseok finally looks around. He’s never noticed how prim and tidy Hyungwon’s apartment is. He knows Hyungwon must’ve cleaned up after everything last night. There must’ve been blood. A lot of blood. The room smells like bleach, like Clorox wipes. Like Swiffer wood-floor cleaner. 

“I should go,” Hoseok says, squeezing his own knees and fighting to motivate himself to stand up. The thought itself is miserable. 

“Wait, you can’t,” Hyungwon cries, around a mouthful of bacon. “The city is...I mean…”

Hoseok’s muscles tense up beneath his skin. “Oh right. I forgot last night was my fault.” 

Hyungwon looks at once bitterly angry and apologetic. “Let’s do something today.”

Monbebe appears at Hoseok’s feet, little orange and white paws kneading at the blanket draped over Hoseok’s lap. “Bbbrrrow?”

Hoseok laughs and scoops her up and scritches her under the chin until she settles up against his bare chest with her paws spread wide like a hug. “What can we do? The trains aren’t running. And the city wants me to pay for whatever it is I did.” 

“Have you ever played Scrabble?”

Hoseok blinks, running his hands over the excessively soft fur on Monbebe’s back. It makes Hoseok think of Tripod. How ragged and matted his fur is. Maybe he and Kihyun should bathe him sometime. 

Oh. 

“Kihyun,” Hoseok gasps, rising up from the couch, forgetting both that he’s completely nude and that Monbebe has been draped over him like a fuzzy vest. She falls to the floor, hisses, and scampers away with one wistful but furious look back in Hoseok’s direction. 

Hyungwon blinks up at Hoseok, gaze falling to Hoseok’s bare back and lower, and then his cheeks flush. He turns to the windows. 

“I have to call my brother,” Hoseok says, clearing his throat. “Can I? Your phone?”

“Oh, I.” Hyungwon sucks his thick bottom lip into his mouth and digs around in his sweatpants pocket for his cellphone. “Right. Here. You know his number? Of course you do. He’s your brother.”

“He made me memorize it. In case of emergencies, you know.” 

“Right, I’d say this counts then.”

Hoseok notes that Hyungwon is still not looking at him. He grabs the blanket from the floor and loops it around his waist, tucking it in to keep it in place. “I’ll just. I’ll be quick.”

“Then Scrabble?” Hyungwon asks, voice small.

“Right. Scrabble. I’ve no idea what that word means, but you did save my life, so.”

“Scrabble.”

Hoseok hums and takes the phone into Hyungwon’s bedroom. He dials Kihyun’s number from memory. Kihyun, always reliable, answers on the second ring.

“I thought I--”

“Ki,” Hoseok gasps at the soothing, familiar sound of his brother’s voice. All at once, everything drains from his chest like the rubber stopper from his childhood bathtub has been pulled. Except everything comes up, swirling out of him and into the air. “Kihyun. Oh, Ki. You’re okay. And I...Kihyun. I was so scared. I was so scared, Kihyun. Please don’t hate me. You know I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know. And you..you’re okay?”

Kihyun draws in a sharp breath on the other line. “Hoseok.”

“I’m sorry I called your number on someone else’s phone, but you said.  _ Emergencies _ . And this is, I mean, I got shot at on TV.  _ Mom _ probably saw me. Ki, Mom...did Mom see? Of course she saw. Everyone saw. Oh, Ki. It hurts. I was  _ so scared _ .”

“You’re safe?” 

Hoseok wipes at his face. He tries to suck the tears back in, but the sound of Kihyun’s voice just makes everything rush out that much harder. “I’m fine. I’m okay. But  _ Mom _ . Is Mom okay? You promise you’re ok? I’m  _ so sorry _ , Ki. I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.”

“I know, Hoseok. I know you didn’t. You were just doing your best. It’s okay. It isn’t your fault. Mom is fine. She called me right after she saw. I lied and told her we planned it.”

“You  _ lied to Mom _ ?” Hoseok gasps, tears dripping over his lips as he speaks. 

“You know how humans are about lying.”

“Right. And you’re ok?”

“Yeah. I’m at Changkyun’s place, and we’re both safe. I’m glad you called me, Hoseok. It’s good to hear your voice.”

Hoseok whimpers, covering his face as he cries even harder. “What do I do, Ki? Everyone hates me.”

“They don’t. Humans just get scared when they don’t understand. We’ll make them understand. Just like we did back then. Remember?”

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

_ “My son is  _ not _ a space alien,” Kihyun’s mom huffs, throwing her chubby tan arms up at the ceiling. “This is fucking crazy. I can’t believe you would even...I mean, how are you even allowed to be a working professional? You know this is insane, right? A goddamn, fucking...a space alien?” _

_ An FBI agent is kneeling in front of Hoseok where he sits on their ratty suede couch. Hoseok is gangly and pale, his purple hair tucked up under a baseball cap he borrowed from Kihyun.  _

_ “Hello, Hoseok, dear. Can you tell me where you came from?” the agent asks, politely, calmly. His face is sharp, handsome. Hoseok’s gut churns as he tugs the rehearsed lies up from inside himself.  _

_ “Right here,” Hoseok answers, voice shaking.  _

_ “Can you step back from my brother?” Kihyun says sharply from where he’s hovering in the doorway, told to wait outside but not listening. “You’re making him nervous.” _

_ “Why should he be nervous? If he’s telling the truth.” _

_ “You want to see the scars on my hoo-ha from when I birthed him?” Kihyun’s mom cries, grabbing the material of her long skirt in her two fists and threatening to lift the hem up. “I’ll do it. I was in labor for fifteen hours to birth that boy. He’s my  _ son _.” _

_ The agent is looking at Hoseok like he can read the DNA in his blood. Like he knows. “Then what is that crater in your backyard?” _

_ “I dug a big hole,” Kihyun says. “Burying a time capsule for a class project.” _

_ The agent’s eyes narrow as he stares at Hoseok. “Tell me, Hoseok. Don’t lie for them. We’ll find out eventually. It’s better to tell the truth.” _

_ “I,” Hoseok rasps, flickering his gaze over to Kihyun. To Kihyun’s mom. His mom now. He’s got a mom now. Don’t ruin this, Hoseok. Don’t hurt these humans. These good, caring, lovely humans. Who bathed him and hid him and sheltered him. Who love him. “I’m from here. Stop accusing me of being an, an alien. That’s my brother. That’s my mother. This is my home. If you don’t leave our house, I’ll say you’re a...a freak who believes in aliens.” _

_ The agent stands at once. Brushes the thighs of his pants with his palms. His eyes are wide, dark, disbelieving. Angry.  _

_ “Get out of my house,” Kihyun’s mom, Hoseok’s mom,  _ their mom  _ exclaims, kicking the front door wide open for him.  _

_ “I know where that boy came from,” the agent hisses, even as he leaves.  _

_ “Glad you know how the human reproductive system works,” their mom screams, as he climbs into his black car and drives away.  _

_ “I lied,” Hoseok says, touching his fingers to his lips.  _

_ Kihyun moves to the couch and takes Hoseok’s face in his hands, pressing their foreheads together. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, Hoseok. You’re my brother.” _

 

_ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ _

 

“Yeah,” Hoseok says, now. “I remember.”

“You’re my brother,” Kihyun asserts, the same serious tone in his voice. “And this city loves you. I promise.”

“I love you, Ki,” Hoseok mumbles, tasting the sweetness of his own tears. “I miss you.”

“You too,” Kihyun says, sounding tense, sounding frustrated. “Please stay safe for me, okay?”

“I will. I will.”

“I have to go now.”

“Right. Of course. Me too. We’re gonna play Scrabble.”

“We?”

“I’m safe,” Hoseok says, not wanting to make up any more lies.

Kihyun heaves a sigh. “Sure. Sure, okay. Just...remember: you’re allowed to lie to them, Hoseok.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I know you don’t. But sometimes it’s better. Humans aren’t all like me and Mom. Some of them want to hurt you. Don’t give them everything, even if they ask for it. You’re allowed to keep something for yourself.”

Hoseok doesn’t understand, but he tells Kihyun he does. 

“Bye, Hoseok. You can use this phone to call me, if you need me again. I trust you.”

“Okay, Ki. Tell Mom I love her and I’m okay?”

Hyungwon peeks his head in moments later, after Hoseok hangs up finally. “You good?”

Hoseok nods, knowing his face is purple. “Scrabble?”

 

They sit on Hyungwon’s bed after Hoseok changes into Hyunwoo’s sweats again. Hyungwon unfolds an old Scrabble game board and briefly explains the game. 

“So you just...make English words?”

“Yeah. The letters are worth points, and you have to build off the words already on the board. You can’t just place them willy-nilly.”

“So it is a smart-people game? No wonder Kihyun knew it.”

Hyungwon ignores that, or maybe he didn’t hear, because he holds the velvet bag of letters out to Hoseok. “Take seven. And don’t feel around for specific letters. You get what you get, and you don’t get upset.”

“Do people really cheat at a game of just making words?” 

“Humans cheat at whatever they possibly can,” Hyungwon replies. 

“Why do they call it cheating when someone sleeps with someone else on television?” Hoseok wonders aloud as he places his tiles on the little wooden rack in front of him. “I thought cheating was for games.”

“I’m not sure why they call it that. I guess when you make an, uh, agreement with someone to follow the rules, and then you break that agreement, it’s called cheating? Regardless of context,” Hyungwon answers, placing his own tiles on his wooden tile holder. 

“Humans enter into agreements with other humans to...sex?”

Hyungwon’s fingers pause over his tiles, and he laughs. When he looks up at Hoseok he’s grinning. “I thought you knew these things. You made it seem like after all these years on earth, you were a human expert.”

“There are things, I’ve learned, that humans don’t like to talk about,” Hoseok responds, watching as Hyungwon places the word ‘GOATS’ on the board to begin the game. “Well that’s not a very good word.”

“You will learn, young alien boy, that this game is not as easy as you think it is,” Hyungon retorts, scribbling his score down on a little notepad. 

“I’m not young,” Hoseok says. “I was probably frozen in space for several decades before I reached Earth.”

“What?”

Hoseok spells out ‘JUKEBOX’ off Hyungwon’s ‘GOATS’, and Hyungwon nearly snaps his pencil. 

“How do you even know what a Jukebox  _ is _ ?”

“My mom loves  _ Happy Days _ ,” Hoseok replies, tabulating his points. “That’s 77.”

Hyungwon gapes at the board before writing the number down in Hoseok’s little column on the notepad. “Are you just good at everything?”

“Not things I don’t know how to do.”

“Well, you didn’t know how to Scrabble, and now apparently you’re a master of Scrabble, so,” Hyungwon grumbles. “You know I have a degree in comparative literature, and here you are, not even  _ from Earth _ , and you are gonna kick my ass at a game about making good words.”

“Uh huh,” Hoseok says. “And? Is that bad?”

“Humans don’t like to lose things.”

“Oh, yeah, Kihyun is the same way. He used to get very mad when I would beat him at Xbox. He’d throw the remotes at my head.”

“Is there anything you’re bad at?” Hyungwon asks, placing down more tiles and garnering a meager 13 points. 

Hoseok thinks about what Kihyun said. About not giving everything away. But when he looks at Hyungwon, at the sleepy, open look in his wide dark eyes, he can’t imagine hiding anything from him. 

“Understanding humans,” Hoseok answers. “Lying. Hiding how I’m feeling.”

“Anything skill-related?”

Hoseok spells out ‘JEZEBEL’ off his ‘JUKEBOX’ for another 75 points as he considers Hyungwon’s question. “I don’t know. Maybe kissing?”

Hyungwon coughs, pressing his fist to his lips as he fights the sound back down. “I, uh, I respectfully disagree?”

Hoseok feels the heat in his cheekbones, tucked up under the skin in his face. “Oh, well, then, I’m not sure. I might be bad at, uh, you know. Sex? But I’ve never had it, so I’m not sure. Maybe I’m great.”

Hyungwon drops his face into his hands and shakes his head. “I don’t need this right now. I’m losing at Scrabble to an alien, and now I’m thinking about-- _ fucking nevermind. _ ”

“You’re mad at me,” Hoseok observes, feeling nervous all of a sudden. “Why?”

Hyungwon stares down at the word he’d just played: ‘LAMP’. He looks back up at Hoseok. “Let’s go somewhere instead.”

“But the trains? And the game?”

“You won,” Hyungwon declares, shutting the board with their pieces still inside, and Hoseok hears them rattling against the thick cardboard. “Let’s go somewhere.”

“The trains, Hyungwon.”

“Fly me,” Hyungwon says, crawling forward to place his hands on Hoseok’s thighs. Hoseok can’t look away from his face. With the light coming through the wall of little windows lining Hyungwon’s bedroom, Hyungwon looks golden and warm. His hair is dark and silky and shiny, and Hoseok wants to touch it. He wants to run his fingers through it and feel the strands between his knuckles. 

So he does.

He reaches out and strokes his hand through the long part of Hyungwon’s hair that hangs heavy over his face. Hyungwon holds himself very still, but his breath rattles in his throat. 

“Humans are so soft,” Hoseok murmurs aloud, more to himself than to Hyungwon. 

“I’m not very soft,” Hyungwon responds. “I’m a Halloween decorative skeleton wrapped in a rubber human suit.”

“Your skin isn’t rubber.”

“You know what you look like, right?” 

Hoseok is taken aback by that. “Huh? What do you mean? I’ve looked in a mirror, yes.”

“But you know you’re like...you, right?” Hyungwon asks, gesturing all over in Hoseok’s direction. 

“You mean aesthetically pleasing?”

“That’s one way of saying it, sure. I mean, you’re, like. Like super fucking hot. They sell posters of you everywhere. Even my straight guy friends say they’d fuck you if given the chance.”

Hoseok blinks slowly. “Well that’s some interesting information. I.” He falls silent, struggling to figure out how he’s supposed to reply to such a sentence.

“Did I break you? I’m sorry. That was a weird thing to say. Let’s just go somewhere. I’m feeling weird. I’m not used to being in my bedroom with sexy space alien superhero who I kissed on the floor of my shower last night after he almost died (again). God,  _ someone shut me up _ .”

“It’s funny,” Hoseok says, after a moment. “How you are sometimes so quiet, but when you start talking, you struggle to stop.”

“Yeah, I’m an idiot. Anyhow, the flying?” his hands are still firm and warm on Hoseok’s thighs. His face is tipped up in the sunlight, gold and gorgeous, his soft cheeks casting a shadow on his sharp jawline. And his lips. 

He saved Hoseok’s life. He’s Hoseok’s friend.

“Yeah. Let’s go somewhere. I’ll take you somewhere.”

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

They’re standing on Hyungwon’s roof in the early-afternoond sun when Hyungwon starts to rethink his plan. 

Hoseok is wearing Hyunwoo’s sweatpants still, with Hyunwoo’s ugly, off-white tennis shoes, a thick navy wool beanie pulled down over his head (“I don’t get cold.” “It’s not for the temperature. It’s for the  _ purple _ .”), and a wide, black-cotton face mask over his nose and mouth.

“I decided this is stupid,” Hyungwon says, wrapping his coat tighter around himself, his lower face hidden behind a fleece-lined face mask. 

“We’re gonna go somewhere,” Hoseok says, stepping closer, hands finding Hyungwon’s waist through the thick down padding of his coat. “Arms around my neck.”

“You’ve flown someone before?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t just do this...what’s the thing you said before? Willy-nilly.” Hoseok grins at his own cleverness, and Hyungwon laughs, coiling his arms around Hoseok’s neck. Hoseok has carried humans while flying before. His mom. Kihyun. The occasional human trapped on the thirtieth floor during an office fire. But it never felt like this. For a moment, Hoseok worries he won’t be able to do it. 

“How did you discover you could fly, anyhow?”

Hoseok thinks about how sometimes Kihyun would scream at him at 3 am, yanking at his arms and legs as he hovered above his bed. “It’s just something I could always do. I think my home planet was much more massive than Earth. It had a much, uh, harsher? gravity. My people...I guess we adapted to that. Learned how to control our body’s gravity to keep our planet from hurting us. And Earth’s gravity is nothing comparatively, so my body just started drifting away sometimes. Nothing to hold me down. I’ve learned to control it.”

“So flight is your body’s natural inclination?”

Hoseok shrugs. “I’m not sure my body has any idea what it’s doing.”

“I feel that,” Hyungwon says, and the two of them laugh. Hoseok realizes he likes the goofy, tired way Hyungwon’s lips part when he laughs. 

“Okay,” Hoseok instructs, body warm and happy as he holds Hyungwon close to him, “hold on.”

Hoseok feels his feet leave the concrete surface of the rooftop, and Hyungwon’s breathing quickens. 

“I mean it,” Hoseok says. “Tight.”

Hyungwon presses his forehead to Hoseok’s throat and clutches him even more tightly. Every inch of their bodies is pressed together. Hyungwon’s breath is quick and hot against Hoseok’s skin. 

When they leave the rooftop, Hyungwon whimpers a little. “‘s colder than I thought.”

Hoseok laughs, guiding them into the sky. Even after all this time, Hoseok’s core tightens at the view. “I’m not gonna go over Manhattan.”

“That’s fine. I don’t need to see it.”

“Your eyes are shut.”

“Exactly.”

“When I tell you, open them, okay?”

Hoseok takes them over Brooklyn, over Queens, over the Bronx. Higher, but not too high. High enough to not be noticed, but still mostly beneath the clouds. Hoseok remembers discovering that clouds are made of condensation. Of water. It was unpleasant. Very wet. His mother was not pleased when he trekked back inside their suburban house with his clothing sopping wet. 

“You’re not taking me to the Empire State Building are you?”

“No, why? Disappointed? Remember, I said no Manhattan.”

“Right, right. And, God, no. I don’t really  _ get _ that whole thing.”

“You don’t get what? The building?”

“Why it’s this big thing.”

“You’ve seen  _ Sleepless in Seattle _ ?”

Hyungwon bellows a laugh against Hoseok’s neck, and it’s shaky and hot compared to the gusting cold breeze of the air as he flies. “I’m mad that  _ you’ve _ seen that movie.”

“I love Meg Ryan movies,” Hoseok admits, holding Hyungwon’s warm body tighter against his. “Kihyun and I used to marathon them.”

“Jesus,” Hyungwon groans, sounding terrified but amused. “That’s a lot to take in.”

Hoseok pauses over the Henry Hudson Bridge, hovering them together in the air over the water. “Do you want to sit on the bridge or do you wanna go to the overlook?”

Hyungwon slowly opens his eyes, and Hoseok watches the scene register in his brain. All at once, Hyungwon’s grip around Hoseok tightens, his breath catches in his throat, and he utters a tiny little “o-oh.”

“Bridge or overlook?”

“Overlook,” Hyungwon says, small, astonished. 

Hoseok takes them to the top of the hills, where the grass is still crispy from frost, but the sun is bright and warm. Hyungwon shakily finds his feet beneath him and steps out from Hoseok’s arms. 

“Where the fuck did you take me?”

“This is still the city.”

“What? I’ve been everywhere in New York. Where is there this much... _ grass _ ? Quiet? Even Central Park isn’t this peaceful.”

“Inwood.”

Hyungwon steps around little clusters of snow still matted to the surface of the grassy hill and surveys the view of the water, the green hills beyond it. “How do you even know about this place? I’ve lived in this city my whole life, and I’ve never been here.”

“It’s a bit inconvenient to get here if you can’t fly,” Hoseok admits. “And crime doesn’t only concern itself with Manhattan, you know.”

Hyungwon finds a large boulder and brushes the dirt from the top with his sleeve, before he climbs up to sit atop it. He luxuriates in the touch of the sun, golden and beautiful, and Hoseok can’t look away. 

Hoseok has never seen a human as ‘beautiful’ before. Not in that way, at least. His mother, of course, makes his heart happy, and he loves to tell her she’s beautiful because he knows that’s what makes her own heart happy. 

But Hoseok has never seen a human on television or in a movie or on the streets and thought ‘that’s beautiful.’ He’s not even really sure what beauty means. Kihyun once said “it’s something you want to keep looking at,” but Hoseok doesn’t think that is quite right. Hoseok loves looking at the dogs in Madison Square Park dog pen, chasing one another around, but he doesn’t think they’re beautiful. 

Not in the way Tom Hanks thinks Meg Ryan is beautiful. 

Hoseok has never looked at a human the way he’s looking at Hyungwon. And part of him feels guilty. Is he allowed to look at Hyungwon this way? Should he have asked first? 

Hyungwon is leaning back on his palms on top of the large boulder, eyes shut, face tipped up to the sun. His eyelashes are dark and long and brushing the tops of his soft cheekbones. His top lip is so sweetly puffy, and Hoseok’s own lips feel the ghost touch of them brushing against his under the spray of hot shower water. Hoseok’s skin tingles. His spine feels tight in a weird way, and his muscles clench like he can’t get comfortable. 

“Hyungwon,” Hoseok says, after a few minutes of just staring. 

Hyungwon doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t shift his position at all. Like a turtle warming itself contently on the sunny riverbank. “Mm?”

“You’re beautiful.”

Hyungwon doesn’t react for a full minute, and Hoseok feels a hammering against his ribcage that must be his heart swelling out against his bones. 

“Are you one of those aliens who finds everything earthly quaint and beautiful?” Hyungwon asks, voice rough and low. 

Hoseok shakes his head adamantly, but Hyungwon isn’t even looking at him. “I’ve never found anything beautiful before. I don’t think such a word existed on my home planet.”

“Then you must not know what the word means,” Hyungwon replies, sounding somehow nervous. 

“Something that makes my skin tingle.”

“The cold is beautiful, then?”

“No, no, that’s not it,” Hoseok says, stepping closer, but still not approaching completely. There’s something untouchable about the way Hyungwon looks, laying there with his long, oh-so-long, legs bent, his knees sharp under the fabric of his pants. He looks breakable. He looks like freshly-blown glass. Hoseok shouldn’t touch him.

“I’ve seen the Earth from above its atmosphere. I’ve seen...I’ve seen so many things that humans call beautiful. I know what it’s for. I know,” Hoseok defends, and his hands grip the fabric of Hyunwoo’s sweatshirt tightly. “I’ve never wanted to use the word before.”

Hyungwon turns his head a little and holds his hand out. “C’mere, you big sappy loser.”

Hoseok nervously climbs up beside Hyungwon on the rock, and the two of them look out at the water. 

“Tell me about your planet,” Hyungwon says, breaking the silence.

“I don’t remember,” Hoseok admits. “My entire being has been shaped by Earth.”

“There must be something you remember,” Hyungwon prods, poking Hoseok in the arm with a grin.

“I remember my mother’s voice. I remember being placed in my escape pod. I remember the scent of smoke. I don’t...I don’t  _ remember _ \--”

“Hey,” Hyungwon says, grabbing for Hoseok’s hands, pulling them away from where they’re gripping into Hyunwoo’s sweatshirt again. “It’s okay. It’s okay to not remember. I barely remember what I ate for lunch.”

“We didn’t eat lunch,” Hoseok sniffles.

“It’s a saying,” Hyungwon replies, squeezing Hoseok’s hands. His hands are so big, so bony, like little thin tree branches. But they’re solid and warm from the sun, and they feel like Hyungwon. 

“I wish I could remember. I think I’m the only one left, you know? I think they saved me, and I don’t know why.”

“You’re good.”

“I’m not sure what that means,” Hoseok admits, watching the way Hyungwon’s knuckles shift beneath his skin as he gently squeezes Hoseok’s hands between his own. “Does that mean the rest of them weren’t good?”

“No, just that maybe they knew you were going to go somewhere and be good. Be the good that place needed,” Hyungwon says gently, dropping his head to Hoseok’s shoulder as the water creates a gentle  _ hushing _ noise against the bank below. 

“That was very sappy of you,” Hoseok observes. “Secretly you are very sweet, aren’t you, Hyungwon?”

“I’ve read a lot of books. I know how to craft a sweet sentiment when I need to,” Hyungwon replies. 

Hoseok hums. Hyungwon’s cheek is pillowy against his shoulder. Hoseok reaches up to run his fingers through Hyungwon’s hair again. 

“Whose idea was the suit?”

“Huh? Oh, mine. Kihyun thought it was stupid. Said I should try to be  _ less _ conspicuous. He was probably right. But I was really into it. I thought being special would help people like me,” Hoseok says. 

“It’s a good suit,” Hyungwon says, laughing. “It’s, uh, very…”

“Vivid?”

“I was gonna say  _ tight _ .”

Hoseok shoves Hyungwon’s head off his shoulder, and Hyungwon goes tumbling off the boulder completely. He squawks and falls with a soft  _ thwump _ .

“Oh, oh my--sorry!” Hoseok cries, crawling to the edge of the rock to peer down at Hyungwon, splayed out miserably in the little cluster of snow piles in the shadow cast by the rock. “I forget, still...you know. Strength.”

“Mhm, sure,” Hyungwon huffs, standing up and brushing snow from his coat. 

“You’re really okay?”

“I’m fine, you big doof.” 

“First I beat you at Scrabble and then I pushed you off a big rock,” Hoseok says apologetically.

“I know,” Hyungwon teases. “What a terrible date.” 

Hoseok’s muscles tighten up again, and his throat feels like there’s something lodged in it. He coughs. Hyungwon looks amused. 

“Is this your first date, alien boy?”

Hoseok nods slowly. “You’re my first friend. I was homeschooled by my mom and Kihyun. I never...I’ve never.”

Hyungwon takes Hoseok’s hand again, and they head off on one of the long hiking trails through tall evergreen trees and crisp fallen branches from the trees that have died for the winter. They don’t say much of anything. Hyungwon asks about Hoseok’s mom, about what flying was like at the beginning, about embarrassing childhood memories. 

Hyungwon tells Hoseok about when he hit his first growth spurt and frightened his parents with his creaky, rapidly expanding bones and joints. About how he felt like saltwater taffy being pulled over a metal hook. About how he would eat six meals a day and still feel hungry. About how he couldn’t find his proper footing for years until the growing stopped because every day felt like a day on new legs. 

“I wish I had known you,” Hoseok says. “You sound funny.”

“Sure, sure. You would’ve been the first one to point out my awkward gym-class boner during the pull-up test,” Hyungwon jokes. 

“No,” Hoseok squeaks, voice pitched shamefully high, “I wouldn’t. I. I don’t even.”

Hyungwon’s eyes shift to Hoseok’s face. “Don’t even what?”

Hoseok shakes his head rapidly back and forth. “Nothing.”

“I thought you don’t like to lie,” Hyungwon says. 

Hoseok feels the flush building up in his cheeks. “I don’t even know what? I don’t? I haven’t ever.”

“You’ve never had a  _ boner _ ?” Hyungwon cries. 

A few birds on branches above their heads screech and fly off. 

Hoseok swallows down that thick mucus-y lump in his throat. “No. I’ve never had a reason to be...aroused.”

“You never watched porn?”

“I mean, sure. Kihyun showed it to me, so I wouldn’t be a complete idiot all my life, but it just looked silly. Just some humans writhing around. Making absurd noises. It sounded like agony. Not like pleasure.”

“Well Kihyun must’ve purposefully shown you shitty porn,” Hyungwon asserts. 

“I’ve never found humans sexually appealing before.”

Hyungwon pauses, shoes scuffed with dirt from the hiking trail. “Before?”

Hoseok swallows again, but the thick, heavy lump in his throat won’t go away. “Before.”

Hyungwon steps close, crowds Hoseok back against the trunk of a thick dead tree. His hands find Hoseok’s waist. 

“Sometimes you’re so shy and other times you’re so confident,” Hoseok observes. “I never know which version of you to expect.”

“I try to read the mood,” Hyungwon replies, fingers curling around the sharp bend of Hoseok’s hip bones. Something warm and smoky rises up from Hoseok’s core. 

“Oh,” Hoseok says. 

“Do you want t--”

“ _ Wait _ .”

Hoseok gently pushes Hyungwon away, and Hyungwon’s face crumples a little. 

“What did I--?”

“No, it’s not. It’s not you. There’s a--”

A scream.

A wailing scream. Like a child. 

Hoseok tips his face up, shutting his eyes, concentrating on the sound. “I have to go. There’s a kid screaming.”

“Might just be playing. Kids scream when they play,” Hyungwon says, grabbing Hoseok by the collar of the sweatshirt. Something human and hurting is shining and wet in Hyungwon’s dark eyes. “Don’t go. Remember what happened? It isn’t safe for you.”

“I have to. I have to,” Hoseok mutters to himself. Over and over. It swims in his skull and rings in his ears, and he pushes off the dusty trail and into the sky. 

The girl is just standing in the middle of a wide and winding trail, face stained with dirty tear tracks, like she’d rubbed at her tears with hands coated in mud. She can’t be more than six. Her shoes are still velcro. 

“Are you lost?” Hoseok asks, squatting down to her eye-level. 

She nods, backing away a little. “Stranger?”

“It’s okay,” Hoseok says, pulling the beanie from his head and the face mask from his nose and mouth. 

The girl’s eyes widen, and her little mouth curls into a big smile. “Wonho.” Her voice is raspy but high, and she hiccups from crying.

“That’s right,” Hoseok says, holding his hand out. “Should we find your family?”

She steps closer and her chubby brown fingers press to Hoseok’s cheeks, checking to see if he’s real. “My daddy says you’re bad. He says you came here to hurt people.”

Hoseok’s fingers curl back into his palm and drop to his side, empty. But the girl doesn’t step away from him. She brushes her tiny fingers over his face again. 

“You’re very pretty,” she says. “Like the doll my brother has.”

“Your brother has my action figure?” 

“Doll,” the girl replies, nodding. “He saves my Barbies.”

“Your dad let him have my, uh, my doll?” 

She shakes her head. “He tried to throw you away, but we rescued you.”

Hoseok smiles and holds his hand out again. “Let’s go find your mommy and daddy.”

“Only daddy,” she replies, but she takes his hand. “Mommy went away.”

Hoseok scoops the girl up into his arms, remembering why he does this, as he stands. “Are you afraid of heights, sweetheart?”

She shakes her head. “I  _ like _ rollercoasters.”

“Right then. Good for you. You’re very brave. I’m gonna take us up high, okay?”

He flies them up above the tree level, and she squeals excitedly. “Do you remember what your daddy was wearing?”

“Mets hat,” she says, confident in her assertion. “He always wears it.”

“Well, then,” Hoseok replies. “Should be easy enough, then. Not many Mets fans.”

“Why aren’t you wearing your purple costume?” 

“Today was my day off.”

“You look prettier in purple,” she says, unabashedly peering down from their position high above the trails, above the trees. “Oh! Oh, he’s there!  _ Daddy! _ ” she screams, mouth close to Hoseok’s ear, and he winces. “DADDY!”

“Hold on, honey, let me fly us down first,” Hoseok coos, dropping down outside Emerson Playground. She wriggles free from his arms and launches herself in the direction of her father, past the gates of the playground. 

He’s a large man, Mets cap pulled down over his eyes, his face wet as he hisses into his cellphone. He spots his daughter running towards him, drops his cellphone into the wood chips, and holds his arms out and open for her. She leaps up against his chest, arms tight around his neck, nuzzling into his neck. 

They murmur to one another, and Hoseok tries not to eavesdrop, but he does hear the man say ‘how did you find me?’ and she points her little chubby finger in Hoseok’s direction. Hoseok tries to hastily throw his beanie back on his head, but his purple fringe peeks out from the bottom, and his face is too distinctive. 

The man holds Hoseok’s gaze. 

Nods once.

Hoseok nods back. 

The little girl waves frantically from her father’s arms. 

Hoseok flies back to the rock where he found Hyungwon beautiful, and realizes as he hovers over everything that Hyungwon isn’t in the park anymore. 

Hoseok feels guilty, a sensation he truly despises. Like someone is wringing out his organs like a dirty dishrag. 

He lands on the rock and sits there until the sun falls low behind the hills across the Hudson. This is just the way things are.

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

Hoseok decides to use the front door this time. It’s dark, and he’s tired of falling through open windows. He’s afraid Hyungwon won’t let him inside.

He rings the bell for Hyungwon’s apartment and waits. 

Hyungwon’s voice crackles through the speakers. “Can I help you?”

Hoseok presses the intercom. “I’m sorry. This is who I am. This is how things are for me.”

Hyungwon sighs, and it fizzles angrily through the intercom speakers. “I know that. I knew that. Have you ever done something selfish before?”

“Yes,” Hoseok replies, holding the intercom button down again. “I got a cellphone.”

“What?”

“I’m not allowed to have a phone. I’m not allowed to have a friend. Hyungwon.”

There’s a pause, and the words tickle at the back of Hoseok’s lips until he lets them out.

“I’ve been selfish since the day I met you.”

There’s a quiet pause, and Hoseok nearly panics and flies to the window to beg to be let inside. But Hyungwon just unlocks the front door through the intercom with a crackly buzzing noise. 

Hoseok walks up the stairs slowly, almost terrified. He’s cradled explosives in his arms as the countdown reaches 0 before, but Hoseok has never been more afraid of anything than he is of Hyungwon. 

Hyungwon opens the door to his apartment, and it’s dim inside. His shirt is loose and baggy and black, with the dips of his collarbones deep and shadowed. Hoseok could drink from them, like deep dry river beds carved in the earth. 

“I want you to be selfish again,” Hyungwon says throatily. “Can you be selfish again?”

“I can try,” Hoseok replies, stepping inside. “What do you want me to do?”

“Stay with me.”

 

Hoseok and Hyungwon are sitting on Hyungwon’s bed again, but the Scrabble board is on the floor, and there’s nothing between them. 

“This is gonna be really embarrassing if you don’t react,” Hyungwon mutters, pulling Hyunwoo’s sweater up over Hoseok’s head and trailing his hands down Hoseok’s chest to his abdomen. “You have very, um, your nipples are very--”

“What? Is something wrong with my nipples?” Hoseok asks, peering down at his own chest, where Hyungwon is circling one of his pale nipples with the pad of a long finger. 

“No, no, not at all. They’re just very hard,” Hyungwon says, sounding shaky, thumbing over Hoseok’s nipple in short stroke.

A short, sharp gasp shudders out of Hoseok’s mouth. “Oh, wow.”

Hyungwon smirks. “You felt that? In a good way?”

Hoseok nods, shifting a little on the bed so that he’s up against the wooden headboard, and Hyungwon clambers forward firmly into his lap. He lightly pinches Hoseok’s nipples between his fingers, and it feels strange, but the strangeness transforms into a tingly, foggy heat on its way down in Hoseok’s body.

“I like it,” Hoseok groans, head falling back against the headboard. 

Hyungwon dips down to flick his tongue over Hoseok’s chest, and it’s wet and hot in the open air of Hyungwon’s bedroom. Hoseok cries out a little and jerks his hips up against Hyungwon’s. “ _ Oh _ .”

“You’ve really  _ never _ touched yourself before?” 

Hoseok shakes his head. “I thought my, uh, penis? Was just an evolutionary thing I gave myself so that I could blend in. I didn’t think it worked that way. I mean I can urinate, but I don’t know how my people reproduced.”

“Well that was almost too much information for me, but luckily I’m incredibly motivated,” Hyungwon says, pressing his impossibly soft, puffy lips to Hoseok’s jawline and kissing him-- _ kissing him _ \--down to his throat, and Hoseok can’t do anything but pant and shake like a small storm is budding in his stomach and trying to fight its way out through Hoseok’s lips. 

“Your mouth,” Hoseok whimpers, craning his neck to the side as Hyungwon latches onto Hoseok’s bare shoulder and  _ sucks _ . “A- _ ah _ , your  _ mouth _ .”

“So I’ve been told,” Hyungwon says, words confident but voice quivering in the air between their bodies. His hips are rolling down over Hoseok’s, and Hoseok  _ feels it _ . That twinge in his muscles like he needs something. Like there is a release he needs to seek. In the way you quench thirst by drinking or take in air when your lungs begin to ache for it. 

Hoseok  _ aches _ for it. 

“ _ Gosh _ ,” Hoseok gasps, bucking up against the heat of Hyungwon’s body over him. 

Hyungwon freezes with his lips nibbling at Hoseok’s ear. He rolls his hips down harder at the sound, and Hoseok cries out. 

“You’re hard,” Hyungwon says, and Hoseok nods against the headboard. 

“Kiss me,” Hoseok pleads, lifting his shaking arms to coil them around Hyungwon’s neck and pull him in. Hyungwon curves down, lips finding Hoseok’s, and everything escalates. What felt like an ache is now urgent. A thumping, completely urgent  _ need _ . Hoseok can’t breathe. It  _ hurts _ .

Hyungwon parts Hoseok’s lips with his tongue, and licks into Hoseok’s mouth. Hoseok tips his head up and takes it, lets Hyungwon take it from him. He’s hard, and it feels like absolute  _ hell _ . 

Hoseok wants to ask for help. He feels small and weak and human, and he wants Hyungwon to  _ help him _ .

“Please,” Hoseok pants into Hyungwon’s parted lips. 

Hyungwon grabs the waistband of Hyunwoo’s sweatpants and yanks, and that urgency sings in the air between them silently until Hoseok is naked beneath Hyungwon, sweats discarded off to the side of the bed. 

“Ask me for it,” Hyungwon says, hands hot and everywhere but not where Hoseok  _ needs them _ . “Ask for what you want, Hoseok.”

Hoseok finds words eluding him. He knows English. Knows how humans communicate. But he can’t form anything in his brain. It’s like he’s forgotten who he is. Dominated by the sensation of urgency. Of need. Selfish, pounding need. 

Be selfish, Hoseok. Ask for it.

“Touch me,” Hoseok says. “Please.”

“I don’t need your politeness, Hoseok. That’s not what selfishness is about,” Hyungwon says, tracing his fingers down Hoseok’s chest, over the curves of his abdominal muscles, to the bend of his hips, teasing right beside the aching hardness of Hoseok’s erection. 

The word sounds horrible in Hoseok’s brain. He tries to think of another word for it. Something less embarrassing. 

His dick?

“Touch me,” Hoseok declares, shuddering beneath Hyungwon’s warm hands. 

“Again.”

“ _ Touch me _ .”

Hyungwon wraps his fingers around Hoseok’s--his dick--and  _ oh _ . 

“Oh,” Hoseok gasps, gripping his hands into Hyungwon’s shoulders. 

Hyungwon winces and gently pries Hoseok’s hands away, moving them to the crumpled duvet blanket beneath them. Hoseok grips the cotton tightly, and it doesn’t feel as nice as Hyungwon’s skin, but Hoseok doesn’t want to hurt Hyungwon so he keeps them still there. 

Hyungwon drags his palm up over Hoseok’s skin from base to tip, loosely, gently. Hoseok squeezes the blankets and ruts up into the touch like he can’t stop himself. And he can’t. 

“That’s--that’s  _ wow _ . Hyungwon, it feels like...it feels  _ weird _ ,” Hoseok babbles, hips rocking up into the touch mindlessly.  

“You’re so fucking sexy,” Hyungwon says, thumbing at the head of Hoseok’s dick. “Your precum is so...thick?”

“Is that odd? I don’t know what it’s supposed to be like.”

“I mean you’re an alien who has never been hard before, so maybe this is normal. It’s cute. It’s like...tree sap?”

“Huh,” Hoseok says, wanting to say more on the subject but not sure what. “So, um, you really know how to-- _ ah _ \--”

Hyungwon laughs softly and takes Hoseok in both his hands and  _ strokes _ . Hoseok jerks up, fisting the blankets so tightly he’s afraid they fabric will tear, and he cries out again, brokenly. 

“I wonder what happens when you cum,” Hyungwon says. “Do you want to?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Hoseok gasps, eyelids fluttering as he mindlessly ruts up into the grip of Hyungwon’s big hands. 

Hoseok loses himself. It’s like every sensation is concentrated in the places where Hyungwon’s skin touches his own, and he’s aware that he’s  _ dripping _ over Hyungwon’s fingers, and it’s slick now and he’s somehow impossibly harder, and the air around them feels thick and hot and it smells like sweetness and sweat. 

“You’re really throbbing,” Hyungwon says, and Hoseok keeps shaking wordlessly. “It’s good? You promise it’s good? You’re good?”

Hoseok nods against the headboard and bucks up again and again, and all the muscles and cells in Hoseok’s body are active at once as he feels that release that he needed so urgently finally arriving. 

“Hyungwon, Hyungwon,  _ a-ah _ ,” Hoseok moans, lost in everything, and not even seeing the stars from beyond the Earth’s atmosphere felt this good. 

Hyungwon’s pace only increases, and it feels like maybe it’s too much now, like Hyungwon is pulling the sensations from him along a length of rope, but they’ve reached the end and there’s nowhere left to go, no more rope left to pull, and it’s just tugging, tugging, tugging--

Hoseok’s mind goes blank, and everything whites out. He screams, he thinks, when he finally releases over Hyungwon’s two hands, thick and sweet. Hoseok has never felt anything more amazing and overpowering and  _ good _ in his life.

Hoseok blinks his eyes open some time later, which must’ve not been very long at all, because Hyungwon is bringing his slick fingers to his own lips and flicking his tongue out over Hoseok’s release as it trickles down his skin.

Hoseok groans at the sight, and Hyungwon smiles down at him. 

“I knew it would be sweet.”

Hoseok pulls Hyungwon down to his chest and everything falls still around them, Hyungwon laughing against Hoseok’s skin like he’s discovered a new meaning of the word joy.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'M FINALLY UPDATING THIS FIC OMG BLESS
> 
> WARNINGS: ANGST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(?) Idk if anyone else will find this sad, but I cried when I wrote it.
> 
> Also, SURPRISE, it's a Kihyun chapter.

It’s nearly eleven am, and Changkyun is still sleeping. He’s curled up around a pale pink fleece body pillow the way he’d been curled around Kihyun hours earlier (like he needs something roughly the same size as himself to ground himself on earth while he sleeps), before Kihyun pried himself free to make coffee and do the NY Times crossword puzzle. 

Kihyun sits on the edge of the bed and reaches out to tentatively brush the frizzy bangs from Changkyun’s face. He’d gone to bed straight after their shower, so his hair has matted to the pillowcase or frizzed up around his soft, tan face. 

Kihyun feels guilty, watching Changkyun like this when he knows he should be working or worrying about Hoseok or his mother, alone in Jersey, or any of the other myriad things he dedicates his life to worrying about. 

Changkyun suddenly lifts his head from the body pillow, eyes frantic, drool dripping from the corner of his lips where it had been pressed against the fleece, and he looks right up at Kihyun. He looks like a cherub, face puffy and flushed. For a moment, he’s confused, scared, in that place right between sleep and wakefulness, and then he just grins. Like Kihyun is his whole world. 

“Mmmmorning,” he growls, voice deep and hoarse from sleep. 

Kihyun’s heart hiccups into his throat and pulses frantically, trying to escape and present itself to Changkyun like a reward. 

“Morning,” Kihyun says back, placing his cold dregs of coffee on the side table and pulling Changkyun towards him by yanking on the bottom of the body pillow he’s coiled around. Changkyun squeaks and releases the pillow to launch himself into Kihyun’s lap. 

“I’m hungry,” Changkyun whines, as Kihyun bends down to press lazy kisses all over his sleep-swollen, scarred cheeks. 

“Me too,” Kihyun declares, shoving Changkyun back onto the mattress, gripping the waistband of his boxers, and tugging them down to his knees. 

Changkyun squeals and wriggles but easily allows Kihyun to turn him over onto his belly, hips lifted up, little ass wiggling in Kihyun’s face. There are four precious freckles on Changkyun’s left ass cheek like some tiny constellation, and Kihyun kisses them gently. 

“Hurry and do it, Ki, I wanna get to the diner on Queens Blvd before the church crowd gets out,” Changkyun whines, and Kihyun lightly spanks him right over those sweet freckles. “You know they run out of cinnamon rolls after 12:30!” Changkyun cries, words breaking off in a breathy gasp when Kihyun’s tongue touches his sensitive bare skin.

“Mhm, I know, sweetheart,” Kihyun coos, grabbing the lube from his sweatpants pocket. “Just hold on.”

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

Georgia Diner is one of those places where the food isn’t great and the service is pretty terrible but the atmosphere is enough to make people keep coming back. Something about the ripped pleather booth seating and 10-page menu, maybe. 

Changkyun sits across from him in their window booth. The light from outside hits the side of his face and makes it glow like the dimpled sands of some fancy Caribbean beach. 

“I want eggs. I want pancakes. I want eggs on pancakes,” Changkyun huffs, paging through the menu uselessly, since he already knows what he wants. 

“Are you going back to work tomorrow?”

Changkyun’s office has been closed for a week now, after what happened on New Years. A lot of offices are observing something of a mourning period, it seems like. Even after all the things this city has seen, something about New Years hit especially hard.

Kihyun’s stomach gurgles unpleasantly. He pulls his phone out from his pocket and checks his calls again. 

Nothing new.

Hoseok would call if he were in trouble. Kihyun knows his brother. He’d call. 

“Yeah, Hyungsoo wants us to all come in tomorrow.”

“Your boss?”

“Yeah. Please pay attention when I talk,” Changkyun says, sipping some coffee-like sludge from a chipped off-white mug. “I want you to come with me.”

Kihyun looks up from his phone again. “What? Why?”

“I just do. You’ll come, right?”

“Are you worried about me?” Kihyun smirks, leaning across the table to pinch Changkyun’s soft cheek. 

Changkyun turns his head and catches Kihyun’s finger with his teeth. “Yes, but Lord only knows  _ why _ .”

“Changkyun, you know I’m not some skinny recluse,” Kihyun says, wincing and holding his finger out to Changkyun’s lips for an apology kiss. “I’m actually quite capable of defending myself.”

“I  _ know _ that,” Changkyun whines, grabbing Kihyun’s whole hand and pulling it to cradle against his cheek. “I just have these nightmares.”

“We’re all having them,” Kihyun coos, stroking his thumb over Changkyun’s cheekbone. 

“Please just come with me,” Changkyun sighs.

“Okay,” KIhyun concedes, “okay. If it’ll make you happy.”

Changkyun releases a big shaky exhale and nods. “I wonder if Hyungwon is going to come in.”

At that, Kihyun perks up a little, straightening his back in the booth seat. “Do you know Hyungwon really well?”

Changkyun shrugs. “He’s my best friend, but he isn’t really a hug and spill your secrets kinda guy.”

“But you know him pretty well?”

Changkyun nods. “Yeah, sure. Have you seen our waiter? I want my eggs and ‘cakes.”

“Is he a good guy?”

“Who, our waiter?”

“No, Hyungwon.”

Changkyun squints across the table. “Do you wanna fuck my friend or something? Why all the questions about the string bean? He’s a switch, you know. He’d want you to bottom, I’m sure.”

“Changkyun,” Kihyun wheezes, covering his face. “I’m asking because he’s your friend. I just want to know more about your life.”

“Okay, but just keep that in mind,” Changkyun says, still squinting across the table at him like a very miffed kitten.

“I’d rather not,” Kihyun replies.

Their waiter finally arrives to take their orders, leaving the two of them to wait again.

“You know I really like you, right?” 

Kihyun blinks slowly. “Yeah, Changkyun, I know.”

“Do you,” Changkyun starts, awkwardly nipping at his bottom lip. “You know? Me?”

“I’ve been staying at your place for a week,” Kihyun says, bad at explaining himself. “I’ve never. You know I’ve never done this sort of thing before. I really shouldn’t be anyhow. Things are...complicated for me. And they probably will be for a long, long time.”

Changkyun turns to face out the window, chin quivering a little. “So you don’t.”

Kihyun stands and reaches across the table to cup Changkyun’s face. “Hey. Let me explain, okay? I’ll tell you everything one day, I promise. I want to tell you. I trust you. I...of  _ course _ I like you, Changkyun.”

Changkyun relaxes into the cushions of the booth behind him and nods. “I don’t do this either, you know.”

“I know. Your reasons are a bit different than mine, though.”

“What, are you in the CIA? Korean Mob?”

“No, Jesus, no,” Kihyun laughs, falling back into his own booth seat. “It’s a family thing.”

“Are your parents homophobes or something?”

“No, of course not. My mom is one of those moms who would walk up to anti-gay protesters and snap their signs over her knee and hand them back. She doesn’t accept any kind of bullying. Which was nice, you know, growing up a skinny pale little Asian nerd in Jersey. There were a lot of Koreans in our town, which was lucky, but I was still. I mean. I’m no--”

“Wonho?”

Kihyun laughs. “Yeah. I’m no Wonho, for sure. But, to be fair, I’m pretty sure most of his muscles are just adaptive alien tissue.”

“You study him or something?”

“Or something,” Kihyun replies.

“So what is it, then? If it isn’t your parents.”

“It’s complicated,” Kihyun says. “I promise I’ll tell you when the time comes. Just. Just trust me, ‘kay?”

Changkyun doesn’t look like he wants to agree, but he eventually nods. “You owe me a lot of orgasms for this, I hope you know. I already have trust issues.”

Kihyun laughs and nods. “As many as you want, baby. I promise.”

Changkyun crumples in his booth seat, hands clasped over his stomach. “ _ Where are my fuckin’ eggs _ ?”

 

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

Starship Publishing doesn’t look quite as glamorous as Kihyun pictured for a NYC publishing house. The carpet is ripped and a dull grayish purple. The majority of the office is made up of hideous cubicles. 

“When I heard publishing was going down the tubes, I didn’t think it would be so...uh…”

“Gray?”

Kihyun follows Changkyun through the office to his own personal cubicle. Hyungwon is there, sitting at his own cubicle, staring into space. 

“Hey,” Changkyun says, kicking at Hyungwon’s rolling desk chair.

Hyungwon stands up abruptly, his chair continuing to roll back with his body’s motion until it hits the cubicle behind him. A woman stands up, looking disgruntled. Hyungwon waves apologetically. 

“Hey,” he says back, grabbing Changkyun and hugging him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Changkyun replies, patting Hyungwon’s back with his face pressed into Hyungwon’s thin chest. “I’m fine. We’ve just been chilling in my apartment. Everything is fine.”

Hyungwon nods, releasing Changkyun and ruffling his hair a little. “That’s good. Yeah, we’ve--I mean, I’ve just been hiding in my apartment too. It seems like everything’s died down now.”

“Well,” Changkyun says, grimacing. “You know we’re gonna get some kinda anti-alien lecture from Hyungsoo today.”

Hyungwon’s jaw clenches. “He’s not in the office yet, is he?”

Changkyun shakes his head. “No. You know him. Especially on a Monday morning. He’ll probably roll in fifteen minutes late to our meeting.”

“You guys are...the ones who publish the alien conspiracy theory books,” Kihyun says, finding the cover art on the walls between cubicles, feeling something twist sharp as a corkscrew in his gut. He looks at Hyungwon, feeling something hot and protective surging up in his esophagus, like some kind of emotional heartburn. “Can I talk to you?”

Hyungwon looks nervous, looking at Changkyun and then back at Kihyun. “Me? Alone?”

“Yeah. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

Changkyun steps between them. “I told you. He’s going to make you bottom.”

Kihyun pats Changkyun’s shoulder. “Baby, I promise I’m not hitting on him. I just have a question.”

Hyungwon shrugs and nods towards the empty little kitchen alcove where their coffee machine and mini-fridge sit. 

Kihyun follows him until the swinging door shuts behind them. “I wanted to trust you.”

Hyungwon raises his hands in alarm. “Hey, hey. Let me explain, please.”

“Explain what? I already warned you. When I called before. I warned you not to play with him. He’s not a pet. He’s not...he’s not some science experiment. He’s not something for you to exploit.”

“And I explained when you called before. I’m not playing with him. He’s my...he’s my  _ friend _ , Kihyun. And why didn’t you tell me on New Years?”

“I didn’t piece it together until a bit later. And I  _ wanted _ to trust you. I didn’t want to butt into my brother’s life. As much as I love tracking his every move every day since we were kids, I do actually want to be able to trust him and leave him to live his own life.”

Hyungwon presses his palms protectively over his own stomach, like Kihyun might try to disembowel him right there next to the old coffee machine. “He mentioned you a lot, but I never would’ve suspected you were  _ that _ Kihyun. I mean, it’s insane, really. In a city of over eight million fucking people, and Wonho’s brother starts dating my best friend right after Wonho starts becoming my friend.”

“It’s really fucked,” Kihyun sighs, rubbing at his face wearily. “But you can’t tell him. If you tell him about where you work, it’ll...it’ll destroy him, Hyungwon. He trusts so easily. You don’t understand...he would  _ willingly  _ feed you his every weakness because he has no reason to think you’d use it against him.”

“He doesn’t have any. He told me. Except heights.”

“You  _ asked _ ?” Kihyun hisses, slamming his hand onto the cabinet behind Hyungwon’s head, caging him in. “Did you ask him his weaknesses, Hyungwon? For some book?”

Hyungwon swallows thickly, and that’s all the answer Kihyun needs. 

“I’m coming to get my brother after work today, Hyungwon. And you will never see him again.”

Hyungwon shakes his head, looking terrified, his whole body quaking like it’s being shocked. “Please, no. Please, you can’t. We...I  _ like  _ him, Kihyun. We’re...we--”

“There is no  _ we _ , Hyungwon. You don’t get to be a  _ we _ with my brother,” Kihyun spits, chest feeling like it’ll literally rend in half if he doesn’t stop this anger from welling up inside him. “He’s good. He’s too good for all of us, and I’m not going to let him find out that there’s not a single person on this god-forsaken earth that he can trust.”

“I promise,” Hyungwon says, face crumpling, tears wetting his short eyelashes, clinging to the tops of his cheekbones. “I didn’t want to hurt him. This book was to  _ defend  _ him. I wanted to show my-my boss that he’s good. That he’s not here to hurt anyone. I swear to fucking God, Kihyun. I never wanted to hurt him.”

Kihyun shakes his head, hands fisting at his own coat. “I don’t give a fuck. You know too much, Hyungwon. Just leave him alone, or I’ll make him learn to despise the very thought of you.”

Hyungwon is shaking, long arms criss-crossed over his torso. “Please,” he croaks, “just let me have one more night with him.”

Kihyun’s face twists up in disgust. “You--”

Hyungwon squeezes his own arms around his body tightly, like he’s actually been cut open and he has to keep all his organs from spilling out onto the linoleum. “He told me I was beautiful, and he. And he kissed me. And we…”

Kihyun backs up, almost tripping over his own feet. “You  _ can’t _ . He can’t have more weaknesses. This will destroy him, Hyungwon.”

Hyungwon reaches out, desperate, grabbing for Kihyun’s wrists. “Please! One more night. Please. I swear I’ll never call him again. I’ll never let him in my apartment again. I’ll cut him off completely.”

“Now it’s just going to hurt him more,” Kihyun replies, wrenching his wrists away from Hyungwon’s grip. “Fine. You get one night. You’re going to tell him that you don’t think it’s safe for you to see him anymore. You’re going to tell him that you’re too busy with work. You’re going to  _ lie _ to him, Hyungwon. You’re going to put a goddamn smile on your face and lie to him, because I have no idea what he’ll be capable of if he has his heart broken.”

“What do you mean?

“I mean he’s  _ dangerous _ , Hyungwon. I’ve spent my entire life protecting him from everything because I’ve seen only a tiny snippet of what he’s capable of.”

“What do you  _ mean _ ?”

“I mean he can’t  _ lose control _ . Our mailman ran over my mom’s cat when we were seventeen, and Hoseok set the truck on fire.”

“Wha--”

“No matter how much you’ve convinced yourself he’s just like everybody else, Hyungwon, you’re wrong. He’s not. He’s an alien, and he could destroy everything if he wanted to. And he’s my brother, and I love him, so it’s my responsibility to make sure he never has a reason to want to.”

Hyungwon’s face is red, flushed, miserable, but he nods. He looks like he might throw up on Kihyun’s shoes, and Kihyun tries not to feel proud of that. “Okay. I’ll make a clean break.”

“I’ll make sure that you do.”

Changkyun tries to stop him as Kihyun grabs his bag from the cubicle and heads for the door. “Where are you going?”

“I got a call from work,” Kihyun lies. “I have to go.”

Changkyun pouts, grabbing the hem of Kihyun’s coat. “Right now? Is everything okay? You look really spooked. Did Hyungwon ask you to bottom?”

Kihyun laughs despite himself. “No, baby. I’m okay. I promise it’s just work.”

It’s not entirely a lie. 

Kihyun’s life work will always be his brother. Everything will always be about Wonho. And maybe that’s unfair to him. Of course it is. It used to drive him crazy, thinking he’d never get to live a normal life because an alien fell into his backyard when he was a kid. 

But Kihyun has never known a greater life purpose than protecting his brother. 

If protecting Hoseok is the only thing Kihyun will ever get to know, then Kihyun will be okay. He will. Because the Earth has never known a greater force of Good than Hoseok. Earth  _ needs _ Hoseok. 

Kihyun might never get to marry. Or have children. Or make great wealth. 

But Kihyun will make sure that the bright light that exists inside his brother never goes out. 

He drops a kiss onto Changkyun’s forehead, onto his nose. Onto his lips, which curl into a little kittenish smile at the touch. “I’ll meet you at your apartment later, okay?”

Changkyun nods and pulls Kihyun in for a deeper kiss, lips parting, breathing hot and trusting into Kihyun’s mouth. 

“See you later. Be safe, okay?”

“Okay,” Kihyun says, pressing one last kiss to Changkyun’s cheek. 

He’s on his way into the elevator bay when a man steps out. 

“Oh, are you the delivery guy?” the man asks, looking Kihyun over. 

“No, I’m Changkyun’s boyfriend. I’m on my way out, though.”

“Changkyun’s boyfriend!” the man cries, clapping his hands together. “Lovely to meet you. He talks about you a lot. Accidentally calls you ‘daddy’ a lot, which HR really needs to talk to him about.”

Kihyun grimaces, as the man pulls the scarf away from his face. There’s something about him. Something achingly familiar. The man is looking at him like he agrees.

“Have we met before?”

Kihyun shrugs. “You seem familiar, but I can’t place it. Maybe I’ve just seen your photo online before.”

The man, who Kihyun realizes must be Hyungsoo, Changkyun’s boss, purses his lips as he stares at Kihyun. “No, I’m sure I must’ve--”

And then it clicks. 

“Special Agent Hyungsoo Kim,” Kihyun gasps. 

Hyungsoo’s eyes widen. “Well,” he says, voice almost a dark chuckle. “What a small goddamn world, huh? That must’ve been, what, almost ten years ago?”

“Eleven,” Kihyun corrects, voice a rough croak. “You work in publishing now. And you...make books about aliens.”

There’s something dark in the way Hyungsoo is looking at him. Like something that had lodged itself into his ribcage has tightened imperceptibly in Kihyun’s presence. Or maybe the opposite. Maybe something that had been torturing Hyungsoo for years has finally released. He smiles. 

“Lovely to see you again, Mr. Yoo. How’s your mom?”

Kihyun grits his teeth. “She’s great. I really must go now, though.”

The elevator doors are parting to take Kihyun downstairs when Hyungsoo adds, “And your...brother?”

Kihyun steps inside the elevator quickly. “My brother is dead. Goodbye, Agent Kim.”

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

Hoseok legally died at age twenty. When it was no longer feasible for their mother to keep sheltering him in their little Jersey townhouse. When the neighbors became too suspicious about the supposedly sickly son of Ms. Yoo who never left the house. Doctors never came in. He never went out. 

And it was hard on Hoseok. The lack of direct sunlight made his body weak. He was like an outdoor plant that was made to try to grow indoors, sat by a small window. 

It was Kihyun’s idea. To declare him legally deceased and move the two of them to the city so Hoseok could become Wonho. 

Their mother was horrified at the thought of having to publicly mourn a son who wasn’t actually dead. But Hoseok was excited. He was so excited to get out of the house and freely move around. To  _ fly _ . To  _ help people _ . It was like his life could finally begin, when his existence as Hoseok Yoo ended. 

They told people Hoseok’s illness finally consumed him. Kihyun published a fake obituary after hacking into the local newspaper’s computers. He’d always had a way with computers. But he had a purpose finally. He could do something that wasn’t just finding all the cheat codes in Rollercoaster Tycoon. 

Kihyun felt like Hoseok would finally be safe if he were dead. If he were Wonho instead. No one would know how to find him. He would only travel by flying. He would only show himself if it was to help someone. He would be a hero and no one would want to hurt him then. Because who would want to hurt a hero?

Kihyun pulls his coat hood up over his head and sits quietly, alone on the A train, huddled against the train window all the way back to his and Hoseok’s apartment stop. 

The apartment smells stale, since the ventilation has been closed for over a week now. He flips the heat on, shivering as he drops into his desk chair and switches all his computer monitors back on. Hoseok’s tracker is blinking in Brooklyn. In Hyungwon’s apartment. 

Kihyun drops his face to the surface of his desk. This is so  _ fucked _ .

Kihyun’s boyfriend’s boss is the Special Agent who tried to expose Hoseok all those years ago, and now he dedicates his life to trying to make Wonho some kind of public villain. 

Kihyun’s boyfriend’s best friend has somehow seduced his brother, who Kihyun assumed had no interest in humans whatsoever. Not like  _ that _ at least. 

Kihyun’s brother might be in love. He might be in love with Hyungwon. Hyungwon, who is writing a book to expose him. A book funded by the man who once tried to take Hoseok away. 

Kihyun types in Special Agent Hyungsoo Kim’s name into one of the computers. Brings up any archived articles he can find. 

DISGRACED FBI AGENT DECLARED UNFIT FOR POSITION

DISGRACED FBI AGENT RANTS OUTSIDE PENTAGON 

DISGRACED FBI AGENT USES FAMILY WEALTH TO BUILD PUBLISHING HOUSE

Well, that’s a start.

And, just as Kihyun suspected, Special Agent Kim is not over what happened eleven years ago. 

And Hoseok is still in danger. 

Exhaustion hits Kihyun hard. He hasn’t really been able to sleep since New Years. 

To be honest, Kihyun hasn’t really been able to sleep since Hoseok. He wonders if this is how parents feel. That feeling like every moment with your eyes shut is a moment something awful could happen. It aches. Like your bones are hollow. Like the universe is just waiting until you are comfortable and unaware. Just waiting until you’ve landed with your hollow bones into its waiting palms so it can bring its hands together and crunch your bones to dust.

God, Kihyun needs sleep.

With his cheek pressed against the cool fake wood of his desk, Kihyun sleeps.

 

✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬ ✬

 

It’s dark when Kihyun’s phone starts ringing. There’s a crick in his neck that won’t go away no matter how he turns his head. He grabs the phone from the corner of his desk and squints at the screen. 

“Changkyun?”

“Hey, where are you?”

“Oh, sorry,” Kihyun groans, rubbing at his tired eyes. “I fell asleep. I’m at my place. Just gonna grab some more clean clothes, and I’ll be at your place in like an hour?”

“Okay, good. I was worried.”

“I’m fine, baby,” Kihyun laughs, grabbing his open backpack and shoveling whatever clean clothes he has left inside. “What would happen?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what your job is. Are you sure you aren’t in the Korean Mob? I’m just worried you’re gonna get shot or something. I just…”

“It’s ok. It’s okay, Changkyun. I’m heading out the door now, okay? I’ll pick up some Chinese from the place around the corner from you, and we can watch reruns of  _ Friends _ and do nothing all night, okay?”

Changkyun sighs over the line, clearly appeased. “I want the sesame chicken special. With the egg roll and fried rice. I deserve it.”

“You sure do, baby.”

Changkyun giggles, which always sounds cute but silly with his deep voice. “Okay. I’ll see you soon. Text me when you get off the train.”

“I will.”

 

The guys working at the Chinese place around the corner from Changkyun’s apartment aren’t even Chinese. Half of them are Puerto Rican, and the other half are Taiwanese.

Kihyun places their order and sits at the booth to wait. 

[Kihyun 7:12 pm]: waiting for the food now.

[Changkyun 7:12 pm]:  (─‿‿─)♡

[Kihyun 7:13 pm]: i’m gonna have my hands full, so can you wait by the camera for me to buzz me in?

[Changkyun 7:13 pm]: anything for you baby  (⌒▽⌒)♡

[Kihyun 7:14 pm]: you’re lucky you cute

[Changkyun 7:14 pm]: so i’ve been told. HURRY UP PLZ. I’m hungry.  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Changkyun 7:14 pm]: if you know what i mean 

[Kihyun 7:14 pm]: sweet little brat

[Changkyun 7:15 pm]:  (=⌒‿‿⌒=)

The man behind the counter holds Kihyun’s bags out for him to grab. 

“You smile at your phone like a lusty old man,” the man says. “It’s uncomfortable.”

“That’s love, I guess,” Kihyun replies, taking a bag in each hand and kicking the front door open. Changkyun’s area is pretty residential. His street is mostly townhouses, with two small apartment complexes beside one another in the middle, where Changkyun lives. There aren’t many street lights. The families in the houses complain when they try to put them in. Kihyun has tried to complain for the opposite reason, because it’s really unsafe to have a dark street in Brooklyn where a lot of young people live, but the residents were adamant. 

Kihyun feels it when someone steps up behind him. He’s always hyper-aware of people, since he spends most of his days alone. In his periphery, Kihyun sees the man is alone. He’s tall, broad, has a black beanie pulled down close to his eyes. In this area, a buff white guy in a beanie could just be some local hipster. 

But then Kihyun senses two more guys climbing out of a dark Ford Explorer parked by the curb. He has a pocketknife in his back jean pocket, but the food is occupying his arms. He just has to get to the front of Changkyun’s apartment, where it’s well-lit. Where Changkyun is waiting by the door camera in his unit. 

He walks a bit quicker, but then the other men speed up.

“Hey,” one of them says. “We just wanna talk.”

Kihyun ignores them, seeing Changkyun’s apartment at the end of the block. Just get there, Kihyun. Maybe a neighbor will see. Maybe someone will call for help.

Hah. 

In  _ Brooklyn _ . 

Good luck, Kihyun Yoo. Kihyun once saw a car crashed into a lamp post on a street corner, smoking and abandoned, and everyone just continued walking past. It was there for two days before cops came to move it.

Another man comes around Kihyun’s left side. He’s literally surrounded. 

But Changkyun’s place is so close. Kihyun drops the bags to the sidewalk and grabs his pocketknife, turning around to try to face them all. “I don’t have any cash. I don’t have anything. If you want the food, just take it.”

“We’re not here to rob you,” one of the guys says. “Kihyun Yoo.”

Kihyun’s skin feels clammy as he grips the handle of his knife. “What.”

“Just here to deliver a message.”

Another man must’ve been waiting nearby, because there are arms grabbing him from behind, pinning his own arms back. Time seems to slow as Kihyun kicks out at one of the men approaching him. He knows how to defend himself. He does.

Against one, maybe two guys. 

Four?

Kihyun lands a kick in one man’s stomach, and the man behind him grips Kihyun’s throat in a choke hold. Kihyun yanks at the elbow tucked around his neck, lifts his legs and shoves them backwards. He manages to get free, but then the others are on him. 

“He won’t stay still. This is dumb. Just deliver the damn message. I keep feeling like people are watching us,” one guy says, looking up at the windows of the townhouses around them. 

Kihyun glances over at Changkyun’s apartment. “I get it. You know who I am. This won’t accomplish anything.”

“Just following orders, I’m afraid.”

Kihyun hooks his arm quickly out, the blade of the knife sinking into the cheek of the man standing behind him, trying to keep him from bolting down the street. The man shrieks and doubles over, blood pooling through his fingers. 

Kihyun runs. 

The light is on in Changkyun’s apartment. Please.

Please open the door.

Kihyun runs, and the men are screaming. The one who Kihyun stabbed says something like ‘just do it,’ but Kihyun is only focusing on sprinting. He’s never been fast. He has surprising strength for someone so small, but he’s never been fast.

But Changkyun is right there. 

Kihyun jumps the little gate in front of Changkyun’s place, loud footsteps roaring behind him on the pavement, voices screaming for him to stop. He yanks at the door. It’s locked. 

Kihyun presses the buzzer over and over. 

The buzzer crackles, and Changkyun says, “Ki, what’s wrong?” 

And then Kihyun goes down. 

Every time Hoseok came back riddled with bullet holes, he made it seem like nothing. Like getting a vaccination needle puncture. Like a pinch. 

And maybe Kihyun had somehow adopted that rationale, thinking, oh, maybe it isn’t so bad.

And, for the first second, it isn’t.

For the first second, Kihyun feels nothing. Just collapses. 

But Changkyun is screaming through the intercom.

And Kihyun’s skull smacks the pavement hard. His vision blurs. His body is numb and also burning.

For a moment, there’s nothing.

It’s quiet.

And then everything catches up.

The sound of gunshots. Tires squealing as a car pulls out onto the main road. People emerging from their townhouses and apartments.

Kihyun lifts a hand to touch his waist, and everything is hot and wet.

Looking up, he can see the night sky, and it’s the first time Kihyun has noticed the stars since he was a child.

There are hands on his face, hands pulling at him to get him to stay awake. “Kihyun. Hey, Kihyun. Kihyun, please. Oh, God, oh god, fuck. Kihyun, please. Stay with me, okay? Kihyun.”

It’s Changkyun. His voice is like smoke, brushing over Kihyun’s face. Kihyun wants to breathe him in.

“It’s okay,” Kihyun pants, the words ripping themselves from his mouth. “I’m okay.”

“Kihyun, you--you’re  _ shot _ . The...an ambulance is coming, okay? So try to stay awake, please. Please.”

“Ambulance?” 

“Kihyun, oh God, you’re really...you’re really bleeding.”

Changkyun looks up at the people standing on their porches, the people on the sidewalk. “None of you did  _ anything _ .”

There’s a sound like a soft boom as something crashes into the sidewalk.

“Ki.”

Hoseok.

“Give him to me.”

Changkyun looks up, terrified. “Wonho?”

Kihyun wriggles to try to face his brother, to get out of Changkyun’s hold. But he’s numb. He’s--

“I can’t…”

They both look down at him, pitifully. Hoseok looks more scared than Kihyun’s ever seen him. “My...it doesn’t hurt. My...there’s blood, but it doesn’t hurt. I can’t...I can’t  _ feel _ it.”

Changkyun collapses to press his face to Kihyun’s chest. “Fuck. Jesus, fuck, Kihyun. Oh God, Kihyun.”

Hoseok shoves Changkyun away and pulls Kihyun into his arms. “I’m taking him to the hospital.”

“No, no, please. I need to be with him.  _ Please _ .”

“I’m taking him,” Hoseok hisses, Kihyun limp in his arms. “We’ll be at NewYork Presbyterian.”

“Kihyun. Kihyun, Wonho,  _ please _ ,” Changkyun wails, reaching for Hoseok’s legs.

And then Kihyun is in the air.

“I’m scared,” Kihyun says, nose pressed to Hoseok’s neck. “I can’t feel it.”

“They’re going to fix you,” Hoseok replies. “They’re going to fix you. Or I’m going to fix it.”

“No you aren’t. Not for this, Hoseok. You aren’t going to do that for me.”

Hoseok is sobbing, his tears flying off into the wind behind him. “I should’ve felt this. I should’ve been here to save you.”

“This is my fault,” Kihyun says, reaching up to touch Hoseok’s face. “I was selfish. I wanted too much. I forgot what I was meant to do.”

“You’re going to be fine, Ki,” Hoseok says. “Just hold on.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: I’m sorry this took me so many moons  
> And I’m sorry it is going to break so many hearts but I promise I am PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE of writing a sad ending so please bear with me OK here it is

Things Hyungwon knows to be true:

There are so many things on Earth that can kill you--tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, crazy guys on bath salts running down third ave with ice picks. 

There are just as many things on Earth that Hyungwon would never expect to kill him. Bunnies, chocolate, rainbows, his mom, and the one other person in his life who told him “I love you” and meant it.

And, sure, Hyungwon has seen the  _ Dateline _ episodes. He’s listened to the “48 Hours” podcasts. He knows: It’s always the husband. It’s always the father. It’s always the boyfriend. It’s always the person who wakes up next to you in the morning and rolls over with a sleepy smile and rumpled hair and pillow-marks on their cheeks; it’s always Him. The one who kills you.

But not Hoseok.

Never Hoseok.

 

Let’s start at the beginning.

When Hoseok was nineteen and Kihyun was eighteen, and Kihyun said, “how fast do you think you could fly?” And Hoseok said, “Dunno. Never tested it. But...pretty fast?”

Kihyun looked at Hoseok, and Hoseok looked at Kihyun, and Kihyun stole a baseball pitch speedometer, and Hoseok flew from one end of the football field to the other. He went 0 to 220 mph in 4 seconds. 

Kihyun frowned down at the speedometer. “Mm, not enough.”

Hoseok, breathless, wiping away tears from the brisk wind, sucking brittle chapped lips into his mouth for moisture, nodded and said, “I trust you.”

So he flew from one goal post to the other again and again until his hair stood up, dry as straw, and his eyes could barely open, desperate for liquid. 

Kihyun, grinning smugly down at the speedometer finally said, “Holy --  _ fuck _ .”

Hoseok had always known Kihyun somehow understood more about his anatomy and his powers than he did. Kihyun had this way of analyzing every movement Hoseok made, noting the way his muscles grew around his shoulders and thighs, but never really at his calves or waist. The way his body adapted to the temperature of the Earth, never really producing sweat, but secreting a pale purple mist over his skin. The way Hoseok’s skin tore open around splinters and sewed itself shut in split seconds. Kihyun was always there to snip the surface of the skin open just enough to tweeze the splinter free. 

Hoseok knew almost nothing about himself. He relied completely on Kihyun to know him. 

And it had always worked. 

 

Until now:

Now, as Hoseok sits beside a series of loud, very human machines, watching air being forced into Kihyun’s open mouth by a thick tube. Tubes in his arms, his throat; wires on his wrists, his chest, his forehead. Hoseok has never seen Kihyun so motionless. 

His chest is inflating with air, but Hoseok can tell it isn’t Kihyun’s air. 

Sometimes, growing up, Hoseok would sit and watch Kihyun sleep to see if he could hear his dreams. See them in the movements behind his eyelids. Even in sleep, Kihyun was always moving. Muscles twitching, legs shifting beneath the blankets, occasionally gasping and shooting up to blink blearily around until he saw Hoseok watching him. 

And then he’d smile, still mostly asleep, and collapse back down to the pillows.

Hoseok would give anything to be able to see Kihyun jerk up like lost zombie. Anything, anything, anything. 

And even though Kihyun said not to, Hoseok can’t help but think about the speedometer, the football field. The way Kihyun smirked like he knew something important because he always knew something important. 

Changkyun and Hyungwon arrive later, Changkyun with red splotchy skin and a handful of soiled tissues. There are tissues spilling from his coat pockets, his pants pockets, his fingertips. Hyungwon is holding him up as they walk through the doorway. 

Changkyun, like some kind of wild, wounded animal, releases a sound unlike anything Hoseok has ever heard. It’s like something out of a nature documentary, something primal and guttural. He reaches for Kihyun’s hand as his whole body shudders like it’s made of nothing more than crepe paper. Like he could dissolve.

Hyungwon sits in the folding chair beside Hoseok’s and silently reaches for his hand. He squeezes, his fingers long and thin as they wrap around him. 

“What did they say?”

Hoseok doesn’t look away from Kihyun. He’s afraid to. Like the machines will stop working and everything will be over if he blinks. “He’s stable now. They had to operate. Remove the bullet.”

“Guess they couldn’t just pluck it out with chopsticks, huh?”

Hoseok suppresses a small laugh.

“Sorry, that was in bad taste.”

“No, it’s okay. Thank you for coming. Once the doctors and nurses left, it started hitting me.”

Changkyun looks like he wants to crawl into the bed with Kihyun, but there’s no room. He kneels on the floor, clutching Kihyun’s hand, forehead to his knuckles. 

“I’m so sorry, Hoseok. This is...this is unimaginable.”

There’s silence between them all for a bit before Hyungwon says, “How. Um. How are you here right now? Don’t you, like, not exist? Legally?”

Hoseok, in his civvies--a baggy pair of gray sweatpants,  black hoodie, and black ball cap--pulls a wallet from his pocket. In it is the fake ID of Ho Won. 

“Kihyun thinks of everything.”

“He did, yeah.”

Hyungwon squeezes his hand again. “Don’t say it like that.”

Hoseok feels the tears stinging behind his eyelids again. He waves his hand in front of his face and tips his head up to the ceiling tiles. “You’re gonna make me purple.”

Hyungwon laughs under his breath and leans his cheek onto Hoseok’s shoulder. “You can purple if you need to, Hoseok.”

“You’re the only one allowed to see that.”

 

The nurses come in later and have to bodily remove them all from the room--visiting hours are over. Changkyun sobs relentlessly, claiming the nurses must be homophobic for not allowing him to stay, and eventually an elderly latina nurse on staff helps sneak him back into the room.

Hoseok wants to protest, but the clumsy, exhausted way Changkyun curls up at the foot of Kihyun’s bed like a lost street puppy makes him reconsider.

Hyungwon calls them an Uber. He looks over at Hoseok. “Do you want to--”

“Yeah.” Hoseok tucks his hand into Hyungwon’s and grips tightly. “Take me home.”

In the Uber, Hoseok watches Hyungwon text Hyunwoo. Hyunwoo and Jihyo left the day before for Korea, to go stay with her family for a while, to recover. It’s 9 pm here in New York, so it’s morning there in Korea, and Hyunwoo, as Hyungwon sighs exasperatedly  _ never fuckin’ wakes up _ .

In the Uber, Hoseok drops his cheek to Hyungwon’s shoulder, feeling the jut of his bones, and it’s just another moment where Hoseok realizes how fragile everyone around him truly is. 

Hyungwon, just as easily as Kihyun, could just...stop.

It’s quiet as they ascend the flights of stairs to Hyungwon’s apartment building. The door is heavy and metal and swings shut with a loud thud behind them, and Hoseok immediately coils his arms around Hyungwon’s delicate, narrow waist and tugs him close.

Hyungwon’s breath is loud in the apartment. The lights aren’t even on yet. 

“I’m so sorry, Hoseok, I’m so--”

“Shh,” Hoseok says, brushing their lips together. “I’m so tired, Hyungwon. I’m really just...so tired.”

Hyungwon swallows, and Hoseok can hear the very human sound of saliva. For some reason, hearing it from Hyungwon feels different. It feels warm, too warm.

“There’s something else I learned from watching all that human tv growing up,” Hoseok says, fingers tracing the rough ridges of Hyungwon’s ribs as he shivers.

“What’s that,” Hyungwon says, breath ghosting over Hoseok’s lips like morning mist.

“The best way to end an episode if something horrible happened,” Hoseok says, feeling oddly light, just from feeling Hyungwon’s warm body against his. “Is to cover it with skin.”

Hyungwon laughs, once, and then he’s flickering his gaze right through Hoseok. “Is that what you want?”

Hoseok nods, mesmerized by how Hyungwon is able to wipe his face clean of emotion so quickly to replace it with another. “Can you?”

Hyungwon maneuvers them into his room, kicking the door shut behind them, whether as a matter of habit or to keep Monbebe out, Hoseok isn’t sure. He’s too distracted by the way Hyungwon pulls his shirt over his head and bares his summer tan-lined chest, a ring of where pale meets gold at the base of Hyungwon’s throat. It’s so human and flawed and  _ gorgeous _ , and Hoseok can’t help but press his lips there, at the hollow of Hyungwon’s sharp clavicle. 

“I want to fuck you,” Hoseok says, and he feels when Hyungwon shudders against him, gripping Hoseok’s shirt desperately. 

“You never swear.”

“It felt right. C’mon, get naked.”

Hyungwon pulls back, grimacing. “That sounds more like you.” He mimics Hoseok’s voice and repeats, “ _ C’mon get naked _ .”

Hoseok shoves him back onto the bed and crawls over him, boxing him in with elbows on either side of Hyungwon’s head. “I said I want to fuck you. Don’t mock me.”

“Not my fault you followed up with ‘c’mon get naked,’” Hyungwon mocks, tipping his head to the side so Hoseok can kiss and bite and watch as the pretty skin becomes pink and then red and then splotchy purple with blood. Hoseok wishes that his blood would do that. He wonders if he could make it. Evolve just for the purpose of wearing Hyungwon’s lips on his skin.

“If you don’t help me, I’m literally going to tear your clothes from your body,” Hoseok says, that familiar but entirely unfamiliar urgency of need rushing through him. 

“Please do,” Hyungwon replies, looking altogether way too comfortable for how messy and wrecked Hoseok feels. He’s never been one for internalizing everything or even having racing thoughts. He’s always found it amusing how Kihyun’s brain worked, like he couldn’t stop, couldn’t meditate, couldn’t quiet it ever. Hoseok remembers telling Kihyun to breathe, empty his mind, during those nights when everything just hit Kihyun a little harder than it should, and he’d panic. 

But Kihyun could only manage to get himself to think  _ breathe, breathe, i’m breathing _ and that was as empty as his mind could get.

Hoseok, though, Hoseok is normally very quiet inside. He’s much less human that way. The way he just reacts to external pressures before his brain even thinks to catch up. 

Hyungwon seems to sense that Hoseok is trapped in his brain in an odd turn of events, and he helps Hoseok by shimmying out of his jeans and boxers. He lays there, bare and stunning beneath Hoseok, and says, “Stop furrowing your brows like that,” as he pokes the little triangle of skin between Hoseok’s eyebrows. “Just touch me. That’s what humans often use sex for.”

“I’m not using you,” Hoseok blurts quickly, skimming his hands up Hyungwon’s narrow hips, thumbing over the sharp line of his hip bones, and up, up, up to his warm chest, where his needy human heart sits rapidly thrumming beneath his palms. 

“I know,” Hyungwon murmurs, coiling his arms around Hoseok’s neck and tugging him down into a kiss. His lips are so soft and plush and warm, and Hoseok wonders why humans ever stop kissing. “But I would let you, if you were.”

Hoseok swallows down the thick surge of need tunneling up from his core, and he rushes to get as bare as Hyungwon so he can press their naked skin together. There’s really nothing he can compare the sensation to. Nothing that matches the rush, the tide of comfort and heat and want that swells up when Hyungwon yanks him back down so their chests are crushed together tightly.

“That feels,” Hoseok sighs, nosing at Hyungwon’s throat as he grinds their bodies together, feeling Hyungwon, half-hard already, rutting against his thigh, “so good.”

“Just wait until you feel it inside,” Hyungwon says easily, as Hoseok’s face fills with fire. “I’ve been told I feel very nice inside.”

“If you are trying to make me jealous, I’m afraid I’m not human and have no idea what that’s meant to feel like. I can, however,” Hoseok replies, gripping Hyungwon under his thighs and pressing his knees tight to his chest, “say that I feel entirely like making you crave me and only me.”

“That sounds about right,” Hyungwon says, head dropping back against the pillows as he wriggles beneath Hoseok’s strong grip. “Now prep me and get in, hm?”

“Why the rush?” 

Hyungwon’s brows tug together. “What?”

“You’re acting like we have no time,” Hoseok murmurs, nipping at Hyungwon’s upper lip. Hyungwon jerks his hips up and whines. “I want to take my time.”

“Humans are always thinking about time.” Hyungwon turns his head to the side, and Hoseok doesn’t like how distant he can seem so suddenly. So closed off.

So he gives in. 

He strokes Hyungwon between his fingers the way Hyungwon had done for him. He tries to keep his grip loose, afraid of hurting him, but Hyungwon cups his fingers over Hoseok’s to help him find the right pressure.

“I like when it hurts a little,” Hyungwon admits sheepishly.

“You’re so gorgeous,” Hoseok replies, watching Hyungwon buck himself up through Hoseok’s tight fist. 

“Then get in me, I swear to God.”

“I thought humans aren’t supposed to swear to their God,” Hoseok says, slowing his touch to the point where Hyungwon moans and whines and thrashes. Hoseok likes it. He likes it a lot.

“Only if they believe. Which I don’t. Life is just a weird amalgamation of chaos and fate, and I don’t-- _ nngh, get the lube _ \--I don’t care.”

“The lube…” Hoseok repeats, glancing around Hyungwon’s room. “That’s...lubrication?”

Hyungwon laughs softly and nods. “Yeah. So you don’t...chafe my insides.”

“Again, I’m unsure you realize how unsexy you sound when you say things like that,” Hoseok replies, laughing in return.

“I’m always sexy,” Hyungwon protests, wriggling beneath Hoseok and arching up as he thumbs over Hyungwon’s nipple. 

“I agree. So where is the lubrication?”

“I hate to use your exact phrasing, but I’m unsure you realize how unsexy you sound when you say things like that,” Hyungwon says, reaching over with his long, long arms to pull open his bedside drawer. There’s a half-empty bottle of slow-moving liquid that clings to the plastic sides of the bottle. 

“This came full?” 

Hyungwon smirks. “Why, you jealous again?”

Hoseok bears down heavily over Hyungwon and nips at his lips again to hear him whine. “Is anyone else here right now, about to lubricate your asshole?”

Hyungwon sighs. “Please don’t talk. Just put it on your fingers and spread me open, okay?”

“Spread you…” Hoseok mumbles, shifting down so he’s looking right at Hyungwon’s bare ass. “I need to fit in there?”

“It’ll work. Trust me. Just start slow. One finger.”

Hoseok pours out a good amount of the thick liquid onto his fingers and rubs it around. “It has no smell.”

“No, I don’t like scented lube. They make it, but it freaks me out when I catch a whiff of watermelons coming from my own butt.”

“That does sound alarming,” Hoseok supplies, running his fingertip over the tight ring of Hyungwon’s hole. “I’m afraid of hurting you.”

“I told you I like pain,” Hyungwon says, reaching down to guide Hoseok’s finger inside. 

And Hoseok likes how Hyungwon arches and relaxes against the sheets like a luxurious cat, bones shifting beneath his tan-lined skin. “It’s good?”

“Yeah, just...just put in a second and move them slowly. Spread your fingers a little.”

Hoseok obeys, watching for every flicker of movement on Hyungwon’s face, every twitch of his muscles. It’s hot and tight and slick around Hoseok’s fingers when he finally fits in a third, Hyungwon clenching down around him so tightly he’s afraid for his dick. 

“What if you squeeze me too hard?” 

Hyungwon cranes his neck to peer down at Hoseok between his legs on his stomach on the mattress, and his hair is wet with sweat, his cheeks red and sweetly flushed. “Are you afraid of my ass?”

“What if humans and...and my people aren’t meant to... _ mate _ .”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it, right?” Hyungwon gasps, as Hoseok brushes something inside him that makes his hands fist into Hoseok’s hair. “Oh, fuck, just get in me,  _ please _ . Or I’ll come, and I don’t want to come yet, please. Please, fuck,  _ fuck _ .”

Hoseok’s body reacts. He’s not sure he’s ever felt the need to do anything as badly as he feels the need to fuck Hyungwon. 

“C...Condom? I don’t have any. I...Kihyun has them, but I’ve never needed them and--”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Hyungwon says, cupping Hoseok’s face and pulling him close again to kiss more. Against his lips, Hyungwon murmurs, “This is probably incredibly unsafe, but you’re technically a virgin and I can’t get pregnant so…”

“Hyungwon--”

“Just come inside me.”

Hoseok grips Hyungwon’s hips and finds himself thrusting in hard, as if on impulse. Hoseok knows he has that part of himself that humans are--and should be--afraid of. That part that acts upon instinct. That has the capability to do so much harm.

But Hyungwon moans so sweetly, so loudly, so obscenely when he does it. Like it’s okay. Like he’s okay. So Hoseok allows that part of himself out, just the littlest bit. Just the teeniest bit. Like trying to shield the sun with thin linen curtains. The heat, the light, it all still burns through, but there’s something there to shield you. 

Hoseok would never hurt Hyungwon.

Not intentionally.

Right?

So he lets himself go.

And Hyungwon makes these beautiful noises for him, like he’s never felt anything as good, and all Hoseok can do is feel. Tightness, heat, pressure around him, like Hyungwon’s body doesn’t want to let him go. 

Hyungwon claws at Hoseok’s back, and he can barely feel it. Everything narrows down to the sensation of bright beaming gorgeous _fuck_ _ah ngh ah fuck_ \--

And then it’s swelling up too tightly, too urgently, and Hoseok grips between Hyungwon’s legs and strokes and strokes until Hyungwon is crying and writhing and spilling his release all over his own pale stomach, and everything flutters and fades and Hoseok follows him into that empty space of only feeling. 

Hyungwon is still shaking when Hoseok pulls out and watches as his release spills out from Hyungwon and trickles onto the sheets obscenely. 

“Did I hurt you?” 

Hyungwon slowly shakes his head against the pillow, but there are still tears in his eyes.

“Hyungwon,” Hoseok says, panicked, climbing over him to thumb at the tear tracks on his cheeks. “I did. I hurt you. You’re crying.”

“No, it was so good. It was so good,” Hyungwon gasps out.

“Then why?” He keeps swiping at the tear drops as they pool at the corners of Hyungwon’s eyelids. 

“I miss you.”

“I’m right here.”

“I promised.”

“Promised what?” Fear is clawing at Hoseok’s chest cavity with its horrible biting talons, and Hoseok clutches Hyungwon to his chest. 

“In the morning,” Hyungwon says, going limp in Hoseok’s arms. “Let’s just sleep.”

“I don’t sleep.”

“Just do it for me, okay? I don’t deserve it, but for the night, please.”

Hoseok grabs a handful of tissues off Hyungwon’s side table and wipes them both clean as Hyungwon starts drifting off. And Hoseok can’t get himself to sleep, not now, but he holds Hyungwon until the sun splits through the curtains. 

 

It’s nearly 11am when the call comes in.

Hyungwon reaches over to swat at his phone and bring it to his ear. “Kyunnie?”

“Kihyun’s awake.”

Hoseok hears it, jerking up immediately. “Let’s go,” he mouths, rising to his feet. 

“Wait,” Hyungwon says, anxiety gutting him open all at once. “You can go in a minute. Lemme just...I need to just…”

“He’s paralyzed, Hyungwon.”

Hyungwon clutches at his phone so tightly his fingers go numb at the knuckles. “Oh  _ God _ , Kyunnie. I’m so sorry. I’m so--”

“He keeps telling me it’ll be okay. There’s physical therapy and medical advancements and blah blah fuckin’ blah, but Hyungwon he’s  _ paralyzed _ from the waist down.”

Hoseok is already tearing the window open, ready to leave. 

“Wait! Please, just a minute, Hoseok, please, I need to just--no, Kyunnie, I’m still here, I promise.”

“But that’s not even the craziest thing, Hyungwon,” Changkyun says. “Did you know Wonho has a brother?”

Hyungwon’s veins turn to ice and then burst into flames. 

Hoseok glances back from the window, fingers gripping the windowsill. “What did he just say?”

“Kihyun is Wonho’s brother, did you know that? Hoseok is Wonho. You did, didn’t you? You knew everything. That’s why he approached you at the office. Because he saw the notes about the book. Hyungwon, fuck, what did you get yourself into?”

“I didn’t mean--” Hyungwon stammers. “It just snowballed, and I have to--Hoseok, please, listen!” Hyungwon drops his phone to the bed and stands, nervous to approach him.

Hoseok’s fingers have balled into fists at his sides. “What book?”

“It’s...my office. We publish those alien conspiracy theory books and my boss is kind of obsessed with you, you know? This was before I knew you, and I told him I could make him believe you’re a good...a good alien, I guess?”

“So you, what? You were just interviewing me for this guy who thinks I’m some...some monster?”

“No! No, I mean, at first, sure! But I didn’t want to  _ sleep with you _ for the book, Hoseok, I promise.”

“You asked me my weaknesses. You knew everything about me. About my family. You were going to tell them everything.” 

Hoseok’s expression draws carefully closed. His skin shifts three shades darker purple, and there’s something much less  _ human _ about him now, his ears pointed and his teeth sharp and his bones more prominent beneath his thin purple skin. His jaw bone and cheekbones are so jarringly prominent, and Hyungwon steps back out of unpredictable fear. 

“Kihyun always said not to trust humans,” Hoseok says, voice rough but still very  _ Hoseok _ .

“I was going to let you go. I was going to tell my boss to shove the book up his ass, Hoseok, I promise.”

“Kihyun came to you to protect me. He threatened you, right?”

Hyungwon swallows and nods. 

“He almost died because I was with you and I wasn’t...I wasn’t paying attention. I’m always,  _ always _ paying attention. But you...distracted me. And you were  _ lying _ to me. I wanted so badly to…”

Hyungwon’s windows start to rattle in their frames, and there’s this horrible shrill whistling in the air. The ground shakes. The German Shepherd that lives below him starts howling at the ceiling. Monbebe is scratching at the door, her little paws visible beneath the crack, and she’s also yowling.

“Hoseok. Hoseok, I need you to calm down, I need--”

“You don’t get to tell me what I need,” Hoseok cries out, purple tears thick on his cheeks. “You don’t speak to me. I  _ love _ you, and you were just!” He starts to rise off the floorboards. “You don’t speak to Kihyun. You and--and Changkyun can both just--”

The windows shatter. Hyungwon’s apartment building starts to collapse as the beams split.Hoseok rips the roof from Hyungwon’s building, and he can hear the cement cracking loudly against the street outside, setting off all the car alarms and splitting open the hydrants. There’s even the horrible shriek of someone in pain. 

“HOSEOK,” Hyungwon screams, but Hoseok can’t hear him. 

Everything collapses, and Hyungwon feels drywall crumbling, wood floor rending up, and he trips backward and slams his skull on the ground. Everything goes dark and falls.

 

Kihyun is sitting up against the hard plastic headboard of his hospital bed when the wall is torn away from the building. 

Hoseok hovers there like a cyclone, bits of earth and cement and branches of trees swirling around him like mad. He looks like the day they found him. Unnatural. Unearthly. 

Dangerous.

“Ki,” Hoseok bellows over all the noise, still speaking like Hoseok, like his brother. 

“Hoseok--Seok, what did you do?”

Changkyun, who can sleep through the apocalypse (which is what this may very well be), lifts his head from Kihyun’s bedside, blinking slowly. “Wonho?”

“Get away from him,” Hoseok screams, and before Kihyun can do or say anything, Changkyun goes flying into the far wall with a loud crunch and a bit-off shout. 

Changkyun, his sweet, sweet Changkyun, who whined got cinnamon rolls and always kissed him when they’d wake up together in the middle of the night for no reason and who only ever wanted love but never let it come to him. 

Kihyun cries out and tries to go. Tries to get to him, but his fucking legs don’t...don’t  _ work _ , and Hoseok--

“Please, Seokkie,” Kihyun pleads, clenching the blankets in his fists. “We can fix this. We can...we can still fix this. Take you underground again.”

“No,” Hoseok declares, as the hospital starts swaying, starts crackling beneath their feet, the foundation splitting. “It’s just going to be you and me and mom.”

Linoleum tiles split and drop through cracks in the floor. 

“What do you--” Hoseok’s eyes are dark, covered over entirely with a purple so dark it’s almost black. “Hoseok, what do you mean?”

“Earth,” Hoseok says. “Humans. None of them are good. It’s only you. Only you and mom.”

“Hoseok, where is Hyungwon?”

Kihyun’s brows pull together, grimace forming on his lips. “Hyung...won?”

“Remember last time, Seokkie? What do we do when the fog comes in?”

Hoseok shakes his head. “I’m letting it. I’m letting it come in.” The floor beneath Kihyun’s bed splits open, and Kihyun watches in horror as Changkyun’s limp body falls through and disappears. Kihyun screams so loudly that his voice gives out on him. This isn’t supposed to happen. This is Kihyun’s fault. He protected Hoseok too long. Sheltered him too much. 

“What did you  _ do _ , Hoseok,” Kihyun cries. “You can’t do this. Earth isn’t yours to play with. You don’t belong here;  _ we _ do. You can’t just--”

“Ki,” Hoseok says, landing on a bit of floor still somehow stable enough to hold Kihyun’s bed in place. 

Kihyun can’t run, but he does flinch. His hands come up protectively in front of his face. He’s afraid. Afraid of the boy who he swore to always protect. 

Behind Hoseok, Kihyun sees the buildings of the city around him shaking and collapsing and falling. The sound is unlike anything Kihyun’s ever heard. The screaming. The booming. The smoke as electrical wires crackle flames to life and pipes burst with burning hot steam and poison. 

And Kihyun knows Hoseok can hear it. Can hear it all, but he’s clearly fighting not to care.

“Hoseok, these are the people you’ve been  _ saving. _ ”

“They don’t deserve my help. My mercy.”

“ _ Mercy, _ ” Kihyun spits, “Hoseok, Jesus fuck, what are you saying?”

“You told me. Back then. You tried to warn me. Don’t get too close. Because all you’ll see is how different I am.”

“Please, just—I loved him, Hoseok. Bring him  _ back _ .”

“Who? Changkyun? Why? Kihyun, please. He’s just like the rest of them. Don’t you want it to just be us?”

“Hoseok, this isn’t you. This is something in your blood, but it isn’t you. Wake up, please. Take it back. Please take it back.”

“Why can’t it just be us?”

“Because you are  _ too good _ for this—this  _ massacre.” _

“I’m not. I left—”

Something cracks in Hoseok. Something like a small chip at the base of a plate that rends the rest to ceramic bits with just the wrong touch. Just a touch too strong.

“Hyungwon,” Kihyun says. “You love him, don’t you?”

“No. He lied. He,” Hoseok chokes out, doubling over and clutching at his stomach as his face twists in agony. “Oh, Ki, I left him there. I left him.”

“Do you feel that, Seok? That’s  _ guilt.  _ That’s  _ regret _ . That’s  _ love _ .”

“I can’t love him, Ki. Would I have done what I did if I loved him?”

“There’s something dark in you, but I know you, Hoseok. You don’t want this. Please take it back. Please.”

“What if I can’t?”

Kihyun’s bed gives a little wobble over the edge of a large split crack in the tile floor. “You can.”

And then Kihyun is falling too. 

 

In the dark, Hoseok remembers Kihyun raising the baseball speedometer in triumph. 

Kihyun whispering to him the moment after Hoseok blows the mail truck.  _ You and I can fix this _ .

Hoseok, too afraid, refusing.

Kihyun, who would protect Hoseok with his last breath, does the calculations. 

_ For emergencies. _

He might not make it. He might not make it far enough or fast enough.

But now there’s nothing left.

So Hoseok flies. He flies until he can hear the familiar sweet sound of Hyungwon’s needy human heart, until he knows he’s gone back far enough, and then he falls too.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: well this is the end, and I'm not sure what to say. I started this fic because a friend sent me a funny scenario where Hoseok is a clumsy superhero and Hyungwon is his reluctant but loveable lois lane. And now here we are.  
> I really struggled with this ending.   
> I hope it does them justice.   
> Please leave your comments if this story meant anything to you. And find me on twitter @likesatellitez

It takes too much out of him, Hoseok knows. No body, no matter how strong, is meant to withstand the kind of sheer force, the kind of extreme pressure that it takes to fly fast enough to reverse the Earth’s rotation.

To turn back time. 

And he and Ki knew that, from the moment when Kihyun told Hoseok not to waste his one second-chance on the bullet lodged in Kihyun’s spine. Because Kihyun always thought ahead, always knew Hoseok would need it for something bigger. Something worse. 

Something entirely his fault.

So of course it should be him who rights everything again. 

It feels like he’s being slowly peeled with a sharp paring knife, the way he used to watch his mother prepare raw fish from the local seaport market. Getting just under the skin, inching the blade between the skin and muscle and bone, being taken apart delicately, purposefully. 

Hoseok couldn’t see anything. Just hoped he’d flown in the right direction the entire time. And when the pain, the shaking in his bones that sought to rend him to dust became too much to bear, he just stopped. 

And fell. 

He lands with a booming crash into cracked asphalt, slabs of it upending beneath him, so he’s laid deep at the bottom of a crater. He looks up, eyes unable to make out anything for a long few moments, and then there’s Kihyun’s voice. 

Kihyun’s sweet breathy voice with their shared lisp on just the same sounds--

“Hoseok? Shit, Hoseok, what happened?”

Hoseok blinks, and he’s crying. He’s crying because it’s all too much at once. Everything aches in just the worst way, but Kihyun is bending over the large crater in the middle of the street, bags of Chinese food clutched in his hands. He’s got the skeptical, cynical expression of an older brother who suspects the absolute worst all the time, and he’s  _ standing _ and  _ alive _ , and Hoseok can’t stop crying.

“Ki, I’m so sorry,” Hoseok gasps, pushing himself up to standing on legs made of ash. His clothes have all mostly burned off, but he can’t seem to feel embarrassed when Kihyun is kneeling beside the crater, reaching an arm out like Hoseok could use his help. 

“For destroying my boyfriend’s street?” Kihyun laughs, and Hoseok takes his hand, squeezing tightly even as he uses whatever strength he has left to leap up onto the street, landing hard on his knees. Kihyun brushes Hoseok’s probably ridiculous hair away from his forehead (if he has any left), and Hoseok’s skin is scabbed with burns. It itches and stings all at once. Kihyun winces and clucks his tongue. “What have you been doing?”

“Where...did you say we are?”

“Changkyun’s street,” Kihyun says, nodding down the street a little ways, where Changkyun’s squat building stands. “Date night. Though I guess I should call him and--”

“Wait,” Hoseok says, suddenly alert, as a van comes screeching onto the street. “I know what this is. I’ve been here before.”

The van’s doors rip open, and four men jump out, and Hoseok tugs Kihyun sharply behind his body. “Kihyun Yoo, consider this a--aw,  _ sheeeyit _ \--Hyungsoo didn’t say the alien brother would be here.”

The tallest man, the one wearing a thick padded black jacket (hiding Kevlar, Hoseok figures bitterly), raises a gun in Hoseok’s direction. “No matter. He asked for a warning, now it doesn’t need to be passed. Hey,  _ freak _ ,” he calls at Hoseok, “here’s a warning for you.”

And he fires. 

And once again Hoseok is acutely aware of how terrified humans must be all the time. He can sense faces in the windows above them, but no one calls the police because what can the police do that Wonho can’t? 

(And, on top of that, who in deep Bushwick wants the NYPD anywhere near their home at this time of night?)

Hoseok feels the bullet rip through his stomach, and he winces. This is nothing compared to the sensation of being unmade over and over by the Earth’s atmosphere, so Hoseok barely reacts when another bullet fires into his shoulder, too close to Kihyun for Hoseok’s comfort. 

“Who did you say sent you? Hyungsoo?”

Behind him, Kihyun hisses, “Agent Kim, Hoseok. It’s Agent Kim.”

Hoseok’s fists clench uneasily. “He’s the one who--?”

“He’s Hyungwon’s  _ boss _ ,” Kihyun adds, wary and frantic. “The fucker never stopped...never stopped hunting you. You need to get out of here.”

“I’m not letting them lay a hand on you.”

“Oy, freak, move over, I have a message to deliver to Kihyun Yoo. Our boss knew your disease of a brother was never dead. Seriously, move aside, Marvin, we’re here to fuck up your shrimpy protector.”

“Who’s Marvin?”

“He’s...a martian,” the man blurts, unsettled. “Because you’re both aliens.” He turns to his men for support, but they all shrug.

“I’m not from Mars,” Hoseok declares, brows knit together (or what’s left of them). “There’s no intelligent life on Mars, you dunce.”

“Whatever! You’re not from  _ here _ , which means you’re from  _ there _ ,” the leader cries, waggling the mouth of his gun toward the stars. “Which means you gotta go.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve realized this, but you’ve shot me twice with no result, and I’m not going to let you touch my brother, so you might as well get back in your unmarked van (very creepy, by the way) and tell your boss that he can come speak to me directly if he has something to say.” 

The leader nods to the men beside him, some kind of unsubtle signal, and they all rush forward at once. 

“Ki, I need you to run for Changkyun’s door, got it?”

He doesn’t wait for Kihyun’s answer. No time.

Hoseok may have lost 90% of his body’s energy, but his last 10% is still enough to fight off four human men of moderate strength. He moves faster than them, grabbing two of the men and ramming them in each other’s directions until their skulls crash together and they collapse. 

The leader, who Hoseok sees now has another gun holstered under his shoulder, comes at Hoseok, and Hoseok quickly maneuvers him so he’s slammed against the side of his van. The door dents beneath him, and Hoseok leans in to murmur, “You leave my fucking family alone, or I swear I will find you by heartbeat alone, and I will make you regret it. I can  _ do that _ .”

There’s something like a flash of anxiety and true terror in the man’s eyes. “We always knew you were scum,” he says, spitting in Hoseok’s face. “And it’s too late anyhow.”

It takes a second for those words to catch up to him. He fixed it already, he--

Hoseok curses, wheeling around to watch Kihyun sink to his knees, the back of his shirt slowly soaking with blood in a messy circle around a bullet wound. 

He sprints, legs pumping his body forward with his last vestiges of energy, and people are hesitantly coming out of their apartments now, always one second too late. The van peels out of the neighborhood and onto Broadway, speeding away with the dent heavy in the driver’s side door.

An older woman with hair curlers tucked up beneath a sheer scarf and a thick wool blanket draped over her shoulders calls out from her small concrete porch, “Is he--do you need help?” She has a slipper in her hand, like she’d been willing herself to come out and beat someone with it.

In the townhouse across the street, a man holds back his young daughter, her braids hanging loose in her eyes as she clutches at a stuffed Wonho doll. “Dad, we have to go. Wonho needs our help.”

Her dad shakes his head and yells out, “Should we call the cops?” His tone suggests that’s the last thing he wishes to do at the moment, and Hoseok knows it would be foolish to say yes. These people have dealt with enough on their quiet street tonight. 

But Hoseok wonders why it’s different this time around. He remembers the last time, the silent figures lingering on their stoops, not speaking, just observing. Why this time do they offer help? Maybe it’s the sequence. Last time Hoseok landed hard on their sidewalk, probably appearing crazed, unhinged, furious. Who would trust that version of Wonho?

“I’ve got him,” Hoseok replies, giving a weak smile, grabbing Kihyun beneath his thin arms and hauling him up into his arms. “Could someone...anonymously report the van? It’s a...a Ford? Ford Transit. Black. No plates, but there’s a big dent in the driver’s side.”

The man with the young daughter nods, solemnly pulling out his iPhone. “My sister’s an anesthesiologist at New York Presbyterian. I’ll call her, so they can be ready in the ER for your…”

“My brother,” Hoseok says, as Wonho, and it feels good. It feels so good. 

“Your brother. You have a brother,” the little girl gasps. “Is he special too?”

Hoseok bites hard on the inside of his cheek. “Yeah. He is.”

Kihyun curls in close to Hoseok’s throat, whimpering in pain, and Hoseok can’t delay anymore. “Thank you. Truly,” he says, before pushing up off the ground and into the sky. 

 

It’s no easier this time. But the man had done what he’d said. Hoseok lands in front of the emergency doors, and two nurses are waiting with a pale blue gurney. 

“For your, uh, brother,” one of them, who can’t be much older than Hoseok, says, helping Hoseok ease Kihyun onto his front on the lightly padded cushion of the gurney. “We’ll do our best, Wonho.”

They take Kihyun away, and a middle-aged male nurse comes over to hand Wonho the inpatient papers and some hospital sweats. “If you don’t know his medical history you can just--”

“I know everything about him,” Hoseok replies, tugging up the pale gray sweatpants in the middle of the emergency room, and the material rubs against his scabbed burns just wrong. “Can I borrow a phone?”

He calls Changkyun first. The sound of Kihyun’s pleading voice saying ‘I loved him’ still rings in Hoseok’s chest cavity. 

“Oh God, why is the hospital calling me?” is the first thing Changkyun wails into the phone. “Is my mom okay? My brother?”

“Changkyun, it’s Wonho.”

Changkyun’s voice cracks. “Wonho?”

“It’s Kihyun.”

Even the second time, saying it aloud makes Hoseok hurt in places he didn’t even know he could hurt. Behind his eyelids. Under his fingernails. At the backs of his knees. Everywhere. 

“The sound. Outside my building. I was in the shower, and I didn’t even think--the crash, that wasn’t? Wasn’t him, right?”

“No, no, that wasn’t him,” Hoseok replies gently. “He’s going to be okay. I got him to the hospital as soon as I could. It looks better than last--I mean, he’s in surgery already, so...and I think. Fuck, this is hard.” He wipes at his face with a roughly blistered palm. “I think he’d like it if you were here when he wakes up.” He gives Changkyun the hospital address and hangs up.

Another nurse approaches Hoseok in his plastic waiting room seat. She’s probably around Hoseok and Kihyun’s mother’s age, and she looks Korean too. She takes the seat beside Hoseok and says, “I want to thank you.” 

She’s speaking in English, but her voice sounds so much like his mother’s that Hoseok chokes up, tears gagging him at the back of his eyes and throat. Hoseok and Kihyun don’t speak Korean much around each other, but their mother spoke it at home to keep the tradition in their blood. When she spoke English, it sounded just like this. Tight at the front of her mouth at certain sounds, deep and open around other unfamiliar sounds. 

Hoseok replies, “Do you speak Korean?” in the language. 

She looks startled but nods. “I came here in my teens. Call me Mikyung.”

“Mikyung,” He repeats, “why would you thank me?” 

She puts a warm, tan wrinkled palm on Hoseok’s knee, and he can feel the heat of her blood through his sweatpants. “My sister would have died if not for you.”

“Your sister?”

She nods, sighing up at the tiled ceiling of the emergency room. Hoseok’s nostrils are so dry and cracked that he can’t smell anything, but he’s sure it smells like human chemicals and blood. “It was a long time ago. One of the first times I remember seeing you on the news. My sister was working in one of the garment district fabric factories, and there was a fire. A small space, with all that flammable material, and it was her and fifteen other immigrant women. They kept little Buddhist shrines in front of their door, and some asshole delivery man must’ve put his lit cigarette in it, and it must’ve gotten somehow kicked over or something and--”

Hoseok lays his hand over hers on his knee. 

“I was here that night. We had the news on in one of the rooms I was turning down, and I saw her building. The sixteenth floor. All those women trapped in there in the fire. And in midtown, you know, no one ever pulls over to let the fire trucks and emergency vehicles through, so they were all stalled on 8th ave, honking and blaring their sirens like mad. The headline was scrolling and saying something like EMERGENCY: FACTORY WORKERS HELD CAPTIVE BY FLAMES, and I was so terrified. I’ve never been more terrified in my entire life, and I’m an Asian-American immigrant who didn’t know any English when I first got to this city. I’ve been scared of many things in my life, but never like that.”

“I’m sorry,” Hoseok says. “I know what that’s like.”

Mikyung smiles sadly. “But then we all saw you. Like something out of old mythology. But bright purple,” she says, winking. “Good choice, by the way.”

“It’s my color.”

“I noticed. And you. You saved them all. No one was even really hurt. We’d never really seen anything like it. Not televised like that.”

“It’s my purpose,” Hoseok replies, and she clenches her other hand over his, so his hand is sandwiched between her warm, calloused palms. 

“It may be your calling, but it isn’t your purpose,” she says. “Everyone here fights to save lives everyday, but we don’t define our lives by it. That’s not living.”

“I don’t even belong here,” Hoseok whimpers, thinking again of Kihyun’s last moments, when he spat that the Earth isn’t  _ his _ . 

“But you’re here anyway,” she says, calmly. “And clearly you have people here who you care about.”

Hoseok thinks of Hyungwon. Of how angry he’d been when he realized Hyungwon might not care about him the same way. And he realizes she’s right. Kihyun had tried so hard to shelter him, but all that had done was make Hoseok even more desperate for connection. And he’d found Hyungwon and latched on so tightly, so trustingly. Because he didn’t understand. 

Human relationships aren’t about always being truthful. They aren’t about being perfect to one another. They’re about making connection in a world so big and confusing and  _ dangerous _ . Finding someone who makes you feel safe in all the chaos. 

All the lives Hoseok has touched so far in his time have a connection to him now. Some of them may despise him, men like Agent Kim, but others, like Mikyung, they care about him in their own ways, too.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” Hoseok admits, shivering suddenly, as his body tries to suck all the power left in him to heal his wounds. “Truly awful mistakes.”

“Welcome to Earth, sweetheart,” she says, grabbing her own knees and slowly easing herself up to standing. She pounds at her lower back with a small fist. “I’m not as young as I once was,” she laughs, grinning in Hoseok’s direction. “We’ll take good care of your brother, Wonho.”

“Hoseok.”

“Hm?”

“My name. It’s Hoseok.”

She smiles again and nods. “Do you think that was a mistake? Telling me your name?”

Hoseok shakes his head. “I think hiding from everyone may have been the ultimate mistake in the first place.”

The automatic doors part, and Changkyun is running through, his Uber still stalled outside. “Where? Where’s? Where do I go?” he pants, tears and snot messy on his young, handsome face.  

“My brother’s … boyfriend,” Hoseok whispers, and Mikyung nods in understanding. 

“He’s in surgery, dear,” Mikyung says. “I’ll take you to the room he’ll be in, so you can wait in some peace and quiet, hm?”

Changkyun looks moments away from shriveling up like a snail, so Mikyung wraps her arm around his middle to hold him steady. Hoseok follows them as she guides Changkyun to a room on the next floor, secluded at the far end of a long hallway. She flips on the television for a distraction and hands Hoseok the remote.

Changkyun drops down heavily into an armchair in the corner of the room, curling up tight. 

“I’ll be back at reception if you need me,” she says, handing Hoseok a wad of wet paper towels. “For the purple.”

Hoseok laughs awkwardly, wiping at his face. And she leaves him and Changkyun in the quiet alone together. In the background,  _ Jeopardy _ plays, Alex Trebek’s familiar voice droning quietly. 

“Changkyun,” Hoseok speaks up after a few moments of uncomfortable silence, “I want you to know something.”

Changkyun looks up, blinking away tears that seem never ending. “Mm?”

“Kihyun is my brother,” Hoseok says steadily. 

Changkyun releases a harsh, shaky breath. “Kihyun’s an  _ alien _ ?”

Hoseok laughs and shakes his head. “I’m adopted, you could say. His mom raised me. Well, our mom.”

“Oh,” Changkyun squeaks, clearly unsettled. “He never told me what his job was. I’m guessing--”

“Yeah. I’m his job,” Hoseok sighs. “He never, uh, let himself have a life outside of this. Outside of protecting me. Protecting this city.”

“He did always seem very...high-strung,” Changkyun admits. 

“You could say that,” Hoseok laughs, fisting the hem of the warm sweatshirt to give his fingers something to do. “I’m the one with the superhuman powers, but he always acted like he had to babysit me. Like if he let me out of his sight, the world would shoot me down.”

“He’s good,” Changkyun chokes out, chin quivering as more tears and snot stream down his face. He wipes at it with the sleeve of his sweater. “He’s so goddamn  _ good _ , you know? I’d never met anyone like him before. We met on a goddamn hook-up app, but he took me to dinner and got me pancakes because I said on my profile that they’re my favorite food, regardless of time of day, and he...he  _ always _ \--”

“Put you ahead of himself?”

“Yeah,” Changkyun croaks. “Fuck, what am I going to do if he doesn’t make it?”

“He will,” Hoseok declares. “For a twig, he’s really strong.”

“Oh, I know,” Changkyun jokes, and Hoseok flushes. “Sorry, bad joke for the crowd.”

“It’s okay. I sort of realized you two were... _ you know _ when I’d catch him sneaking out of the apartment in the middle of the night. No offense, but no one goes on a date at 3am.”

Changkyun flushes deeper, and Hoseok notices tears are drying on his cheeks now and not dripping anymore. “He put up with a lot with me.”

“Puts. He’s not going anywhere.”

“He’s--”

The television begins blaring an emergency siren, and Hoseok winces at the sudden disconcertingly loud noise. “What now?”

_ Jeopardy _ cuts to an emergency news bulletin, where local news anchors are looking alert and alarmed and nervous but also like this is one of the most exciting stories they’ve ever delivered. Humans can be vile that way, feeding on terror.

“Ladies and gentlemen of New York, we come to you with this emergency alert. There is currently a hostage situation taking place here in midtown, at the 36th St. and 8th Ave cross-street. The hostage is being held on what appears to be a window-cleaning platform outside the eleventh floor. So far we are only aware of one hostage, who can be seen in this short helicopter video.”

They cut to a shot of a tall, dark figure clutching at the rails of the wobbly scaffolding as another man holds a gun to the back of his neck. 

“Wonho,” Changkyun says, gripping the arms of the chair beneath him. “That’s our office building. That’s. That’s Hyungwon.”

“Oh,” Hoseok gasps, unsteadily rising to his feet. His energy is frighteningly low, his body still fighting to repair itself from the outside in. “ _ Fuck _ .”

Changkyun stares up at him. “I didn’t think you’d be a swearer.”

“No word is strong enough for this emotion,” Hoseok replies, ripping the hospital window open. He turns back briefly to ask, “You’ll be okay, right?”

“Just  _ go _ .”

When Hoseok jumps, he isn’t sure he’ll make it. He feels gravity tearing at his body, yanking him down to the concrete below, but he urges his last vestiges of power to drive him up as high as they can. As fast as he can. 

He’s Hyungwon’s  _ boss _ . The man who once tried to expose fifteen-year-old Hoseok as some villainous disease to mankind. Hoseok grits his teeth. Humans. Hypocrites. Hoseok, the one who dedicated his entire existence to being the savior of humankind, is the villain. Not the FBI agent who sought to destroy the life of a kid and now holds a destructive weapon of  _ human  _ invention to another innocent human’s skull. 

If Agent Kim has Hyungwon in such a public place it must mean he wants Hoseok’s attention. He wants the  _ city’s _ attention. Or maybe it reaches beyond the city. He must know Hyungwon and Hoseok are close, must want to exploit it in front of whoever will watch. 

Hyungwon could never find out Hoseok’s weakness, but he became it.

It takes him longer than he would normally take to fly to midtown, and Hoseok almost drops into the river once or twice, almost knocks right into the all-glass side of an unexpectedly tall building when he wasn’t paying attention, but he sees the flashing neon lights of Times Square and knows he’s close. 

There are blaring sirens below the window scaffold, helicopters circling. And Hoseok arrives on scene in a NY Presbyterian set of sweats. But he can’t find it within him to care. The world can be afraid of him or they can adore him, but Hoseok is going to fight for what he cares about. In purple lycra or heathered gray cotton.

For a moment, it looks like the helicopters will turn on him, but instead two of them fly apart to let Hoseok through. Hovering himself a little ways away, eye level, Hoseok fights against the urge to release his energy and fall. Not yet. He can wait. 

“You got my message,” Agent Kim calls out above the din of sirens and helicopter blades batting through the air. 

“Not very subtle,” Hoseok responds. “Hyungwon, you okay?”

Hyungwon, shaking in the cold night air, gives a short nod, but Agent Kim digs the mouth of the gun harder into the nape of his neck in retaliation. It’s a small firearm, something unfortunately and frighteningly common here in the city-- _ humans _ (not the time, Hoseok)--and Hoseok knows he could take it easily if he could get close enough.

But he’s so slow now, so weak from moving the Earth against its own natural forces, and he may be able to withstand a few rounds of bullets but Hyungwon isn’t. 

Hoseok has already come close to losing a loved one tonight. He can’t let himself watch Hyungwon die. Can’t let the city watch it. Hyungwon’s family. His friends. What would Monbebe do without him?

What would Hoseok do?

“What can I do to make you let him go?”

“I have a proposition,” Agent Kim says. 

“Well? What is it?”

“My friends have planted explosives at all six different entrances of Madison Square Garden while I’ve stood here with your... _ friend _ ,” he says. “So here’s my proposition. I’ll hand Hyungwon over to you unharmed, and those unknown, anonymous faces going about their nights at the lovely Paul Simon concert can just...not be saved.”

“What? That’s insane! What on Earth are you trying to prove?”

“That trusting you is a  _ fallacy _ ,” Agent Kim cries. “A  _ fantasy _ .”

“I’ve never asked anyone to trust me,” Hoseok spits, listening for the sound of Hyungwon’s rapidly beating heart, hearing his terror. “Do you just want to punish me for existing? What will that solve?”

“I want you to realize that if you want to live here, you have to learn your place. You can’t be one of us and also one of them.”

“I was raised here, just like you were. This is  _ my city _ . Hyungwon is...”

“You have one minute to decide,” Agent Kim shouts. 

“I can’t choose!” Hoseok yells, body heavy and shaking in the air. “I’m not human, but I still  _ care  _ like one.”

“One human you know by name or 20,000 bystanders. Forty-three seconds,” he replies, staring at the watch on his wrist.

Hoseok tries to think through the fog clouding in his ears, in front of his eyes, in his skull. He’s terrified, angry, and he can’t fix this. He did all work that for nothing to change. He wasted his one second-chance. He’s still going to lose everything. 

If he saves Hyungwon, he couldn’t live with himself. There are  _ kids _ in that stadium. 

If he stops the explosion, he’ll lose the only person he’s ever allowed into his life. The only person, he’ll admit to himself, that he loves.

Hoseok meets Hyungwon’s gaze. “Do you trust me?” he mouths. 

Hyungwon shivers violently and mouths, “Yes.”

“I love you,” Hoseok says, as he forces the floor of the scaffold to split in half, and Agent Kim and Hyungwon separate. Agent Kim grips onto the railing and clings to the half of the scaffold still being held aloft. Hyungwon falls through. 

He screams, this wild and horrible sound that Hoseok is sure will haunt him forever if this doesn’t work, but Hoseok doesn’t have time for ‘if’s. He soars through the open window of one of the hovering helicopters, grabbing a length of rope and diving down before anyone can react, letting gravity haul him as quickly as it can toward Hyungwon. 

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I love you,” Hoseok cries out again, circling around Hyungwon’s thin ankles with the rope and hastily securing it before flying off without seeing if it holds. 

Madison Square Garden is gigantic, and Hoseok has no time. He listens for the sound of the explosives, but the concert is so loud, and Hoseok is  _ so tired.  _ The men watch in amusement as Hoseok bursts through the concert hall doors and sweeps up the first explosive, cradling it beneath his arm. He has no time, and he has all six explosives held in his arms like delicate, fragile children, and he climbs up over the Garden higher and higher and higher and higher until everything bursts. 

 

There are hands. 

Wherever he is, there are hands on him. 

So many hands. 

Did he reach another dimension? One where creatures with many arms will grab at him for all eternity? Does he deserve it? Probably.

There are voices too. Faint beneath the sound of shrill ringing in his ears. 

“Careful! Careful, please!” someone is shouting, and Hoseok is being lifted. 

There are at least seven pairs of hands on him, holding him up, carrying him. 

His skin is singed, and everything is dark and ringing around him. 

“You lit up midtown like some bright purple-ass fireworks, kid,” one voice says. 

There are smaller, higher voices too. Like children.

He feels like he’s in a parade. Being carried down 7th Avenue like a Snoopy balloon. 

“Hyungwon,” Hoseok tries to say, but nothing comes out. His throat is raw. Everything is raw.

And everything goes dark again. 

 

“They can’t even pronounce his goddamn name right,” Hyungwon spits, as the news anchor once again says ‘Ho-see-yuk Yoo.’ He once again saves the goddamn city, and they say Ho-see-yuk.”

“Well it’s all out now,” Nurse Mikyung says, patting Hyungwon’s shoulder. 

He’s in a wheelchair beside Hoseok’s bed. Broke both his legs when the rope length ended and yanked hard at his bones as he fell. He doesn’t blame Hoseok at all. If anything, he’s just even more astonished by him. 

There’s no one else in this universe who could find a way to save everyone. Who would be willing to.

It’s been two days since the whole incident, and he has so many missed calls, but he can’t find the strength to do anything but worry about Hoseok.

“Our mom is probably so pissed,” Kihyun sighs, his own wheelchair bumped up beside Hyungwon’s. 

Changkyun cards his fingers through Kihyun’s hair and kisses the top of his head. “We’ll send her some apology flowers.”

“‘Sorry I almost let my little brother die again, Mom?’”

“On second thought, how about a fruit basket?” Changkyun suggests, grimacing at Kihyun’s skeptical expression, his arched brow. “Orrrrr we could just write a check.”

“After all these hospital bills,” Kihyun scoffs.

Mikyung turns around from where she’s been inspecting Hoseok’s vitals. “Oh, they didn’t tell you? The city is covering everything.”

“The...city? The great American people’s tax dollars?”

“They can’t fix the L train, but they can handle an insurance-less kid and his alien superhero brother. By the way, please get insurance.”

Kihyun shrugs. “I don’t exactly run a company. It’s just me and Hoseok, and he’s never really almost died before. Not like this.”

“Is he even in there?” Hyungwon asks quietly, tentatively.

“He’s in there,” Kihyun says. 

Hyungwon nods, but still feels the unease eating at the lining of his stomach. “I know this is my first time in a while, but does anyone else feel a strange sense of deja vu being in this hospital?”

Kihyun shrugs. 

Changkyun changes the channel, and there’s another shot of Hyungsoo being led into an armored police vehicle in handcuffs. Hyungwon doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to trust an employer again. Maybe he should just work for Kihyun. 

“In positive news, the hero of the city declared his love for you on national television, so that’s something,” Changkyun says, flicking to the next channel, which shows a crowd of local Dominican kids on bikes in front of the croney’s black van near Broadway Junction, holding it and its passengers at a dead end by the subway station until the police arrived. 

“Well that’s one way to come out to my distant relatives,” Hyungwon mutters.

“Very romantic,” Mikyung teases, making a few notes on a clipboard. “He’s in there, all right. When he hears your voices, his heart rate spikes. You should keep talking.”

“I, uh,” Hyungwon murmurs, fidgeting his thumbs in his lap and looking everywhere and nowhere at once. “Could I get a minute? Alone?”

Changkyun giggles at Hyungwon’s nerves and wheels Kihyun out. Hyungwon hears him whispering to Mikyung, “By the way, I know he’s paralyzed, but we can still fuck right? I need to know if I gotta learn how to properly ride him, you feel me? I never had to do all the work before.”

Mikyung laughs, bright and loud, and gestures down at Kihyun in his chair. “Your boyfriend has already been visibly aroused in my hospital at just the sound of your voice, so that should answer your question.”

The door swings shut, and Changkyun is briefly heard saying, “Can you please show us to the nearest empty room or broom closet for research purposes?”

Hyungwon wheels himself closer to Hoseok and takes his hand. His skin grew back completely purple after the explosion. He’s purple all over, radiant with it, like there are amethysts at his core.

“Hey, you big dumb idiot,” Hyungwon says, tracing his fingers gingerly over Hoseok’s protruding knuckles. His skin is so new that it’s baby soft. “You saved my fuckin’ life. Can you wake up so I can thank you?”

Hoseok’s heart rate does spike. Hyungwon watches it on the monitor and finds a modicum of comfort. 

“Don’t you want my reply? It’s so anticlimactic to declare your love for me with no reply, right? No one’s ever told me they loved me before exploding violently on national television before. No one’s even ever told me they loved me. Please don’t be the first and last, okay?”

Hyungwon fights through the emotional constipation that so often holds him back. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I was using you. I’m sorry that you fell in love with someone so fallible and emotionally repressed. I need you to wake up so I can make it up to you, okay? Hm?

“I want to meet your mom. I want your mom to meet my mom, and they can gossip about what good children we were but how we’ve grown into such disappointments. Well, your mom probably wouldn’t say that, since you, you know, saved the city again. And my life. My mom will probably ask you some trick questions like ‘who do you love more? Your mom or my son?’ Don’t worry. Just say your mom. She’ll like that answer. And she’ll slap my back and tell me I found a good one because good ones should always love and respect their elders above all else.

“And you have to come see Monbebe again. She’s never loved anyone like she loves you. She cries all night by the window when you don’t come. There are so many things I want to do with you. I want to kiss you on the gross Staten Island Ferry, even though it always smells like piss and there’s always some guy there on meth. I think he’s the one always peeing. But it can still be romantic.

“And I want to go to Seoul finally and make my mom happy. We can wear hanbok and we’ll find you a nice purple one (for men...or maybe not? Whatever you’re into I’m into). And I want to go upstate and go hiking, and you can’t use any powers, and you have to help me when my weak-ass knees give out on the descent from Kaaterskill Falls. 

“And I want to learn everything about you. I want to learn your body. I want to know it better than Kihyun and your mother do. I want to know it better than even you know it. I want to make it mine, and you can make mine yours, too. I want to kiss you. I want to fuck you. I want to kiss while we fuck like gross happy people do. I want full eye contact. I want us to put on some gay-ass Miguel song and I want us to get naked and kiss and look at each other in the eyeballs directly because we’re in stupid gay love.

“I love you, and I don’t deserve you. I’m a weak, lying human. I once stole a gumball from the bodega near my childhood home. And I didn’t return it. Obviously. Because I ate it. I wrote all the answers to an anatomy exam inside the wrapper of my water bottle once in high school and read from it during the test. I worked for your apparent mortal foe without telling you; though to be fair, I had no idea he was a literal piece of human scum. Well, I had an inkling.

“I love you, so wake your stupid alien ass up and kiss me. I’ve had to watch Changkyun and your brother being gross and happy and kissing and Changkyun definitely felt Kihyun up under the wool blanket on his lap in the wheelchair earlier, and I’ve learned that men can still get hard when paralyzed, and I’m so overwhelmed and I don’t want to do this alone anymore.

“Please don’t make me do this alone anymore.”

The monitor lights up, blinking and beeping and beeping and beeping, rapidly and ever-faster.

Nurses rush in in a panic, bending over Hoseok’s bed, pushing Hyungwon away in his chair, and Hyungwon can’t believe this. He’s killed him. His love confession just killed Hoseok.

Then everything goes quiet. 

The nurses are solemn, and one turns to Hyungwon, possibly to offer condolences.

Hyungwon ignores her, because then there’s a faint beep. And another. And another. 

Hoseok’s hand twitches against the mattress. His eyelids blink open, and he immediately finds Hyungwon behind the nurses. “Hyung...won.” Nothing has ever sounded more beautiful than the sound of Hoseok’s raw-ass throat whispering his name.

The nurses part to let him through, and Hyungwon wheels himself until he’s practically rammed up against the side of the hospital bed, wheels clanking against the metal bedpost. Hyungwon grasps Hoseok’s hand tightly, and Hoseok’s fingers gently curl around his palm. 

“Did you hear me, you big dumb sap?”

Hoseok’s chapped lips spread into a smile. “I love you too, you beautiful giant grasshopper.” There’s a pause, Hoseok’s expression shifting in adorable confusion, “And...didn’t we already fuck, or did I dream that?”

The nurses shuffle awkwardly away, and Hyungwon has never been more endeared, more in love in his entire life. 

 

“I thought you hate heights,”  Hyungwon says, when Hoseok lands Hyungwon atop the Empire State Building at midnight, one year after the day he exploded. 

“I do, but there’s no better romantic gesture than this in this city, right?” Hoseok replies, gesturing around them at the bright lights of the still-very-much-awake city. The city’s people, for the most part, contrary to popular belief, do actually sleep normally, but the lights sure don’t. 

“It’s a terrible waste of electricity, don’t you think?” Hyungwon teases, and Hoseok coils an arm around his waist and yanks him in for a kiss. His lips are warm and soft and so familiar at this point, but Hyungwon still turns to soft squishy grass jelly at his touch. 

“In another life, I ruin everything by letting you go,” Hoseok says, turning his face to look out below them at all the lights.

“Who cares about that life then? We’re here now. Why did you stop kissing me?”

“I’m trying to have a moment. Don’t all heroes have moments?”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize I was brought here as witness to your angsty hero moment. Please continue,” Hyungwon taunts, biting at the shell of Hoseok’s ear. 

“I just want to say that I’m grateful to be here with you. In this universe. I could’ve landed anywhere, I guess. Which I don’t think about a lot, but it’s true. I fell into Kihyun’s back yard, and Kihyun led me here, and it all led me to you.”

“You’ve watched too many human movies.”

“I like them. They make me hopeful.”

“Well now they’re making one about you, so I bet you can’t wait for that. Spreading your gross hope all over everything.”

Hoseok laughs, pressing the warm tip of his nose to Hyungwon’s neck. “Is that so awful?”

“What? Hope?...Spreading things?”

“No, you know I love the spreading of things. Peanut butter. Your gorgeous, never-ending model legs over my shoulders as I lick--”

“Hoseok,” Hyungwon says, swatting at him. “The city will hear you.”

“This is the same city where the most common pieces of litter are used condoms, plastic bags full of urine, and rubber gloves. I think it can handle me.”

“Well I can’t.”

“No?” Hoseok turns to look right into Hyungwon’s eyes, and Hoseok’s are so bright and vibrant purple, and Hyungwon knows him well enough now to know from the sight of the color that he’s genuinely happy. “But what if you have to?”

“I have to, huh?”

Hoseok pulls Hyungwon’s hand into his coat pocket, and Hyungwon’s fingers find a small leather box. “If you want to, that is.”

Hyungwon draws in a sharp inhale. “You can’t just say I  _ have _ to and then follow up with that weak-ass amendment. Make me your man, Ho-see-yuk Yoo,” Hyungwon declares. 

“You’re so impossibly human,” Hoseok groans, pulling the box out. He brandishes the black leather in front of Hyungwon’s face. “Marry me or die!”

Hyungwon tips his head back and cackles like a wild hyena scenting fresh meat. “That’s more like it.”

“I can’t believe that worked on you.”

“Keep going. I’m feeling this Hoseok.”

Hoseok grabs Hyungwon by the lapels of his coat and tugs him back in close. He pulls the ring from the box and works it onto Hyungwon’s bony ring finger, having to really shove over his thick middle knuckle. “Marry me and love me forever, you useless twigman. I want to orgasm with you for the rest of our lives.”

“You’re losing me,” Hyungwon says, still laughing at him.

Hoseok starts laughing too, unable to hold it in. “Marry me,  _ damnit _ . Please...damnit?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hyungwon says, touching his pale spindly fingers to the gold of the ring, spinning it around his finger. “I hope they put this in the movie.”

“I’ll phone the director. Now kiss me, please. That was the most humiliating thing I’ve ever done.”

“It wasn’t exploding on live television?”

“Nope, definitely this.”

Hyungwon leans in, curling his left hand around Hoseok’s neck so he can feel the chill of the metal against his bare skin. “Then my answer is yes.” 

Hoseok grins, lips pressed to Hyungwon’s.

“You’re going to have to break it to Monbebe though.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
